As requested by Frank, here are the working parts of my earlier Downgrading a MySQL schema from 5 to 4 article.

The Problem

To recap, I received a MySQL Version 5.0 schema via a sql file, however I was unable to upgrade from MySQL 4.0 to MySQL 5.0 on my old RedHat 7.3 production server. As an interim solution, I still wanted the schema and data to allow for initial development (without the 5 specific features including Views,Triggers and Procedures/Functions). However the MySQL 5.0 SQL file would not run in MySQL 4.0.

Sample

Here is a small subset of the MySQL Sakila Sample Database schema to demonstrate the problem.

DROP SCHEMA IF EXISTS sakila;
CREATE …

Do you laugh at the Department of Homeland Security? What about NASA? Or the US Census Bureau? Or maybe you giggle at the Associated Press.

Lee Asher, who claims to be an "expert author" says that the industry does in his article published on WebPro News.

I don't know how I missed the contents of the post at the first glance, but nonetheless, a recent post by Jay Pipes sent blood rushing through my veins when he introduced to me what I would like to term "the dumbest article on the face of the planet."

This article tells me in …

We are all excited (and a little nervous) about upgrades until we hit a dead end, like Ronald did. His server, RedHat 7.3 didn't had glib 2.3, which is required for MySQL 5.

Ronald documents the steps he took to downgrade MySQL schema from MySQL 5 to MySQL 4.

I wish he would've gone in to a bit more detail as to how exactly he did some of the steps such as changing "ENGINE=" to "TYPE= " to assist folks who haven't done this before, but nonetheless, it's a post worth blogging about.

If time permits, and assuming I get access to an older server (using RHEL 3 on all mine) , I will document the steps and post them here in detail. Till then, enjoy Ronald's post.

P.S. I was going to post a comment on Ronald's blog but his comments are restricted to registered users. We all need to open up comments so we can comment on each other's blogs …

Harry, thanks for the praise for Eventum. This is mainly the result of my work and Bryan Alsdorf at MySQL, even though I’m no longer with MySQL AB anymore. We do agree with you on the aspects of making the page controllers as simple as possible, and also trying to let the code be as simple as possible, but still easy to maintain and change.

For some of its technical weaknesses such as the use of HTTP_GET_VARS and etc, there is a reason for this. Eventum was initially supposed to be a commercial product, and I wanted to sell commercial licenses of this application, to be then installed at the customer’s server. I tried to make the installation process as easy as possible (and it still is one of the easiest web applications to install around), and that meant working with whatever PHP …

A friend of mine recently needed to upgrade to MySQL 4 (I told him to upgrade to MySQL 5 but he didn't want to).

I told him to back up mysql.so and lib_mysql.so files and warned him of what issues he might run into based on my "Upgrade to MySQL 5 post."

After he tried, he ran into a few additional problems. These problems, their fix (and his comments) are mentioned below for reference.

(in mysql.log) [ERROR] Fatal error: Can't change to run as user 'mysql' ; Please check that the user exists!

There was no system user 'mysql', which was apparently expected by the new version. I had to add that user ("useradd mysql").

(in mysql.log) [ERROR] Can't start server : Bind on unix socket: Permission denied

All of the permissions on /var/lib/mysql were set to 27:27, so I had to change those permissions ("chown …

At the annual MySQL Users Conference in April we will announce awards for our applications of the year and partners of the year.  It's a nice way to recognize the successes of people who help make up the overall MySQL community, whether its big companies using MySQL, innovative startups, interesting dot orgs, developers, partners and so on. Past winners have included organizations like Wikipedia, Friendster, Sabre, CNet, Cox Communications, LiveJournal, Novell, SAP, Rackspace, GoldenGate Software, Quest Software, Embarcadero Technologies and others.

Also, early registration is available now for the MySQL User's conference saving $200 off the normal fee.  Last year we had over 1000 attendees and many …

I've had some discussion with the developers of the Open-XChange Groupware server about using MySQL as a storage backend. As it turned out, a long-standing bug report has just recently been picked up and the first patches have been posted. The procedure on how to get OX working with MySQL is also described on a Wiki page and there is a discussion about this in their Forum. So if you're interested in testing Open-XChange with MySQL, give this a try and provide them with feedback! Thanks for your support.

I've had some discussion with the developers of the Open-XChange Groupware server about using MySQL as a storage backend.

As it turned out, a long-standing bug report has just recently been picked up and the first patches have been posted.

The procedure on how to get OX working with MySQL is also described on a Wiki page and there is a discussion about this in their Forum. So if you're interested in testing Open-XChange with MySQL, give this a try and provide them with feedback! Thanks for your support.

Andrew van der Stock wrote to let me know that he has posted a contextual overview of a security architecture for PHP. I think he clarifies many of the things he mentioned in his previous post, and he makes a statement that has been a guiding principle for me in my work on the Zend Framework:

Of course, it is possible to write insecure programs in any language if you try hard enough. What I want is the easiest way is also the safest way.

I'm really glad to hear Andrew make this statement, because I think it's a simple but important goal - make the easiest way the safest way. For example, I wrote recently about The …

Hmmmphh. No, let me correct that. Hhmmmppppphhhh.

For those of you who know me, you realize that the above is about as angry as I get. I've generally a very nice guy! But..... on certain occasions, I've been known to get my knickers in a twist over certain things (my colleagues at a previous job used to call it J-had, as in gihad!). And, I've got my knickers in a twist over a certain silly little article on WebProNews. Why? Well, here goes.

Lee Asher, ostensibly called an "Expert Author", had the following to say about MySQL:

MySQL is the most common database software for small websites, but is laughed at in the rest of the industry. It's fine for simple insertion and retrieval of data, but if you start trying to do anything more advanced with it, you're …