This 20th issue of the OpenLampTech newsletter marks 5 continuous months of weekly publishing. Thank you, the readers, for making it possible and continuing to read these newsletters. Once again, this week’s issue has plenty of PHP/MySQL content so enjoy the newsletter!

The Newsletter for PHP and MySQL Developers

Receive a copy of my ebook, “10 MySQL Tips For Everyone”, absolutely free when you subscribe to the OpenLampTech newsletter.

This week’s OpenLampTech newsletter issue has plenty to read for everyone as I am loading these newsletters up! We are looking at articles covering:

…

Saturday, I posted how to use Microsoft ODBC DSN to connect to MySQL. Somebody didn’t like the fact that the PowerShell program failed to write a *.csv file to disk because the program used the Write-Host command to write to the content of the query to the console.

I thought that approach was a better as an example. However, it appears that it wasn’t because not everybody knows simple redirection. The original program can transfer the console output to a file, like:

powershell .\MySQLODBC.ps1 > output.csv

So, the first thing you need to do is add a parameter list, like:

param (
  [Parameter(Mandatory)][string]$fileName
)

Anyway, it’s trivial to demonstrate how to modify the PowerShell program to write to a disk. You should also create a virtual PowerShell drive before writing the file. That’s because you can change the physical directory anytime you want with minimal changes to rest of …

This post explains and demonstrates how to install, configure, and use the MySQL’s ODBC libraries and a DSN (Data Source Name) to connect your Microsoft PowerShell programs to a locally or remotely installed MySQL database. After you’ve installed the MySQL ODBC library, use Windows search field to find the ODBC Data Sources dialog and run it as administrator.

There are four steps to setup, test, and save your ODBC Data Source Name (DSN) for MySQL. You can click on the images on the right to launch them in a more readable format or simply read the instructions.

MySQL ODBC Setup Steps

1. Click the SystemDSN tab to see he view which is …

If you have worked with an RDBMS for some time, you will likely have come across the statement SELECT 1.

However, rarely is it correctly explained to engineers what the origin of SELECT 1 is, and why it’s useless and wasteful? A google search is not going to give you the response you would hope, these ranked responses are just as useless as the statement itself.

Bloat

Seeing a SELECT 1 confirms two things. First you are using a generic ORM framework, quote, and second, you have never optimized your SQL traffic patterns.

“Frameworks generally suck.
They CLAIM to improve the speed of development and abstract the need to know SQL.
The REALITY is the undocumented cost to sub-optimal performance, especially with data persistence.”

Connection Pooling

SELECT 1 comes from …

A student wanted a better example of writing a MySQL Persistent Stored Module (PSM) that maintains transactional scope across a couple tables. Here’s the one I wrote about ten years ago to build the MySQL Video Store model. It looks I neglected to put it out there before, so here it is for reference.

-- Conditionally drop procedure if it exists.
DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS contact_insert;

-- Reset the delimiter so that a semicolon can be used as a statement and block terminator.
DELIMITER $$

SELECT 'CREATE PROCEDURE contact_insert' AS "Statement";
CREATE PROCEDURE contact_insert
( pv_member_type         CHAR(12)
, pv_account_number      CHAR(19)
, pv_credit_card_number  CHAR(19)
, pv_credit_card_type    CHAR(12)
, pv_first_name          CHAR(20)
, pv_middle_name         CHAR(20)
, pv_last_name           CHAR(20)
, pv_contact_type        CHAR(12)
, pv_address_type        CHAR(12)
, pv_city                CHAR(30)
, pv_state_province      CHAR(30)
, …

I recently needed to add multiple columns to an existing table to store summary data calculations and wondered if I could do it in one MySQL ALTER TABLE statement. Turns out you can. And, it’s super simple. Convenient too. Continue reading and learn what I learned…

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

The Newsletter for PHP and MySQL Developers

Receive a copy of my ebook, “10 MySQL Tips For Everyone”, absolutely free when you …

I’ve once again published a massive issue of the OpenLampTech newsletter, the newsletter for PHP/MySQL developers. If you’re looking to learn more about PHP and MySQL, you’ve come to the right place…

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

The Newsletter for PHP and MySQL Developers

Receive a copy of my ebook, “10 MySQL Tips For Everyone”, absolutely free when you subscribe to the …

In MySQL, the @@sql_mode parameter should generally use ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY. If it doesn’t include it and you don’t have the ability to change the database parameters, you can use a MySQL PSM (Persistent Stored Module), like:

Create the set_full_group_by procedure:

-- Drop procedure conditionally on whether it exists already.
DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS set_full_group_by;

-- Reset delimter to allow semicolons to terminate statements.
DELIMITER $$

-- Create a procedure to verify and set connection parameter.
CREATE PROCEDURE set_full_group_by()
  LANGUAGE SQL
  NOT DETERMINISTIC
  SQL SECURITY DEFINER
  COMMENT 'Set connection parameter when not set.'
BEGIN

  /* Check whether full group by is set in the connection and
     if unset, set it in the scope of the connection. */
  IF NOT EXISTS
    (SELECT NULL
     WHERE  REGEXP_LIKE(@@SQL_MODE,'ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY'))
  THEN
    SET SQL_MODE=(SELECT CONCAT(@@sql_mode,',ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY'));
  END IF; …

This blog post is an excerpt from premium MySQL Beginner content I am creating to help anyone learn how to use MySQL. Thank you for reading and please do provide feedback.

Image by Willi Heidelbach from Pixabay 

You may also be interested in the blog post, MySQL Beginners Series — The SELECT statement, which is a primer for this article.

Limit …

I am so pleased to announce that I have published my very first mini eBook, “10 MySQL Tips For Everyone”. Continue reading to find out what it’s about, and how to get your copy.

What is the 10 MySQL Tips For Everyone eBook about?

In this eBook, I share 10 useful tips for anyone working with the MySQL database. These tips are a mix of the relatively common, and a couple of my personal own that I have realized or discovered as I continue to learn MySQL.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

So you’re (hopefully) wondering how you can get your own free copy of “10 MySQL Tips For Everyone”.

Super easy…

The Newsletter for PHP and MySQL Developers

Receive a copy of my ebook, “10 MySQL Tips For Everyone”, absolutely free when you subscribe to the OpenLampTech newsletter.

That’s it.