I got a "Sun T2000":http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t2000/ server from their "test drive":http://www.sun.com/emrkt/trycoolthreads/index.html program a few days ago. I didn't have the right serial adapter to get to the console port at home and my 30 minutes of trying to stitch together the right cable didn't work out, so I am taking it down to the perl.org rack instead of playing with it at home.

I took a few pictures and uploaded them to flickr.

I don't know if we get to keep it, but if we do then it's probably going to be in that rack anyway, so... (crossed fingers - if you work for Sun please put in a good word for me with your marketing department :-) )

When we get it up we'll try setting it up as a perl5 and parrot smoke test server. With the Solaris zones we might be able to have it safely run tests of everything …

I got a "Sun T2000":http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t2000/ server from their "test drive":http://www.sun.com/emrkt/trycoolthreads/index.html program a few days ago. I didn't have the right serial adapter to get to the console port at home and my 30 minutes of trying to stitch together the right cable didn't work out, so I am taking it down to the perl.org rack instead of playing with it at home.

I took a few pictures and uploaded them to flickr.

I don't know if we get to keep it, but if we do then it's probably going to be in that rack anyway, so... (crossed fingers - if you work for Sun please put in a good word for me with your marketing department :-) )

When we get it up we'll try setting it up as a perl5 and parrot smoke test server. With the Solaris zones we might be able to have it safely run tests of everything …

One of the biggest annoyances in the current MySQL versions is that you still have no access to the original view definition (at least by SQL, there is a way through the file system, which I described in a former article).

So again, if you create a view like

CREATE VIEW v_checktest AS
SELECT id, val FROM checktest\n  
  WHERE val >= 1 AND val <= 5\n  
  WITH CHECK OPTION

SHOW CREATE VIEW v_checktest returns

mysql> SHOW CREATE VIEW v_checktest\G

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       View: v_checktest
Create View: CREATE ALGORITHM=UNDEFINED 
  DEFINER=`mpopp`@`localhost` 
  SQL SECURITY DEFINER VIEW `v_checktest` AS 
select `checktest`.`id` AS `id`,
  `checktest`.`val` AS `val` 
 …

You may have seen several great queries how to get useful information out of information_schema - so here's one more:

SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA,
  sum((DATA_LENGTH + INDEX_LENGTH) / (1024 * 1024)) as size_mb
FROM information_schema.TABLES
GROUP BY TABLE_SCHEMA
ORDER BY size_mb DESC

This query lists all of your databases with their sizes in megabytes in descending order.

If you only want to see those databases exceeding 1 MB, do the following:

SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA,
  sum((DATA_LENGTH + INDEX_LENGTH) / (1024 * 1024)) as size_mb
FROM information_schema.TABLES
GROUP BY TABLE_SCHEMA
HAVING size_mb > 1
ORDER BY size_mb DESC

Quite simple, but very effective!

It’s tax season, and this year I decided to export my GnuCash data into a MySQL database for analysis. This article is about that process, including source code for the export script and a couple of simple queries. The source code is available on GitHub. The script GnuCash is a powerful double-entry accounting system for managing personal and/or business finances. I’ve used it since about 2002, and find it adequate for my needs.

This topic seems to come quite early - MySQL 5.0 (as GA release) is not even half a year old and MySQL 5.1 has just turned into beta.

But I've heard that MySQL 5.1 will be quite a quick release, so MySQL 5.2 is maybe not that far away.

So it could be a good moment to start to talk about the features that could be in MySQL 5.2. Some plans have already been published:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/mysql-5-2-plans.html
http://blog.arabx.com.au/?p=111

(if you know more sources, please add them as comments ;-))

Maybe, someone could create a new forum where people can discuss what they would like to see inside MySQL 5.2. I'm sure, many people inside the MySQL Community (me included) have their favourite features. …

I had a tough time to choose from all those phantastic tutorials and sessions at the MySQL User Conference. Now I have a list of my top favourites, which I'd like to show you.

However, this is of course a very personal choice with very personal decisions, so I wouldn't like to call this recommandation or anything like this. Everybody is different, has different topics of interest and different expertises - so it's quite obvious that everybody would make different choices.

You can see how tough the choice was if you look at the "other favourites". It makes my heart bleed that so many interesting sessions (and of course, the tutorials, too) take place at the same time and it's not possible to watch all of them.

So here it is:

2006-04-24 08:30:00 - 2006-04-24 12:00:00

Secure Your PHP and MySQL Web Applications
…

I just uploaded the first clickable version of the diagram of the MySQL 5.1. information_schema database. Its right here: http://www.xcdsql.org/MySQL/information_schema/5.1/MySQL_5_1_INFORMATION_SCHEMA.html.

Apart from adding the new information schema tables (PARTITIONS, FILES, PLUGINS, PROCESSLIST, ENGINES) I also touched up the layout, modified the pagesize (in the visio file; you can now print it on A3 without much hassle), and added a relationship between SCHEMATA and TRIGGERS.

I will be maintaining both the 5.0 and the 5.1 version of the diagram from now on.

You might know that you can install a MySQL copy from the development source tree and that it's perfectly documented in the MySQL manual.

However, many people might not have tried it for themselves, maybe assuming that it's very complicated. But I can tell you, it's easier, as it looks - so maybe this little article can encourage you to give it a try ;-).

First you need a Linux PC (maybe the new gratis VMWare can help you to install Linux without losing your current installation). I have (quite an old) test PC with a Pentium processor (x86 architecture) with SuSE Linux 10.

First I created a directory for the MySQL 5.1 development source installation. I used /MySQL51 - you can put it anywhere you like, of course.

I also assume that you try it on a PC where security isn't such a big issue. So …

Meet us in Hall 3, Booth B46 (partner booth of MySQL)