It seems I only ever post these days to shamelessly plug MySQLDevelopment.com :) However recently my conscience has been clear because I've actually been plugging content written by people rather than myself.

Roland Bouman has done a great job on his blog recently (even winning the grand prize in the MySQL 5 competition), but he has still found time to kindly write content for MySQLDevelopment.com, this weekend we put the final touches to his introduction to the Call Level Interface and Connector/J articles. They are available now at the following URL


http://mysql.gilfster.com/page.php?parent_id=3a&page_id=3a.0.1

Just stumbled about this comment about MySQL 5.0 in an article about OSS Databases in the Inquirer: "This major release in October has remedied many of these shortcomings with new features including ACID transactions..."

Sigh. Transactions have been supported using the InnoDB storage engine since March 2001 when it was added to MySQL in version 3.23 (as part of the Max builds, it was enabled in all binaries starting with MySQL 4.0). What is it about the Internet that such myths stay around for so long? We even have an article that dispels common MySQL misconceptions like this one, but it seems checking facts is too much work...

More info on using Transactions with …

for most ORM’s the typical access path is

single table selects either for:

• a primary key (for a single record)
• a list of related records (ie.. a foreign key)
• and possibly a ‘%XXX%’ to match a name or something

Is the HANDLER functionality a better (ie faster) method than using SQL syntax in this case? it seems like a more natural ‘fit’ for the ORM type behavior.

Tonight is the 2nd MySQL Meetup Group. The group has 114 people registered. I saw a clear need to make the group back in October, given that there were 32 people waiting for a Boston MySQL Meetup Group.

And of course, Boston being a major high-tech area, folks are driving in from a 30-mile radius (New Hampshire and places out on 495) to attend.

(Fourth part of the MySQL 5 general purpose routine library presentation.)
SYNTAX HELPERSNo matter how skilled you are as a programmer, when dealing with a rich language (or a rich library),
there is little chance that you will remember the syntax of all the routines, especially if such routines need more than two parameters each.
This is even truer for MySQL stored routines, where the language does not allow niceties like routines with variable number of parameters or default values for parameters that are not included in the call list.
I solved the problem storing the syntax in a couple of tables, and having a few functions returning such syntax for each routine and some procedures to list routines by a regular expression.
Let's start with these last ones.
The most general procedure is …

There is *nothing* like unit testing within transactions w/InnoDB tables. Test to see that everything works, then rollback. w00t!

I've had to do the following work around for a Bug in MySQL 5.0.16:

$result = mysql_query($query);
if (!is_resource($result)) {
mysql_close();
sleep(1);
mysql_reconnect(); // reconnect.
$result = mysql_query($query);
if (!is_resource($result))
throw new Exception(mysql_error());
}

I wonder if I am elligible in the dirty workaround of the year award.

(Note that sleeping for smaller amounts of time failed).

MySQL and Business Objects today announced the signing of a new OEM referral agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will jointly sell integrated solutions that combine the MySQL Network database subscription service with business intelligence software from Business Objects. The new solutions offer customers a cost-effective way to deploy an integrated business intelligence and database solution, at a fraction of the cost associated with traditional, proprietary databases.

So I did one of those decadent actions I do every so often. I went to bed last night, started a book, got some sleep, and then finished the book this morning. I received Connie Willis's Bellwether in the mail on Friday (thank you Michelle!), and decided to just read it. This is the first time I knew someone who used my Amazon Wishlist. Normally I just get books from strangers who are thankful for source code I release (mod_layout seems to be the software that people are most thankful for).

I liked the book though it was a bit outside of my normal definition for Science Fiction. There really wasn't much of a science fiction angle to it. The math was all statistical in nature, and the comments on chaos theory weren't all that profound. The main character rattles off facts constantly, and about midway through the book I was waiting for the plot to get going. Willis could have shortened the beginning and spent more time on the main two …