The binary logging format in MySQL has been ROW by default since MySQL 5.7, yet there are still many users sticking with STATEMENT or MIXED formats for various reasons. In some cases, there is just simple hesitation from changing something that has worked for years on legacy applications. But in others, there may be serious blockers, most typically missing primary keys in badly designed schemas, which would lead to serious performance issues on the replicas.

As a Support Engineer, I can still see quite a few customers using STATEMENT or MIXED formats, even if they are already on MySQL 8.0. In many cases this is OK, but recently I had to deal with a pretty nasty case, where not using ROW format was found to cause the replicas to silently lose data updates, without raising any replication errors! Was it some really …

Last week at Percona Live, I was asked what book I recommend for novices seeking to learn MySQL.  For a long time, there has not been a good choice for modern versions of MySQL. Luckily I had just stumbled upon such a book.  Now I am happy to recommend The MySQL Workshop – A practical guide to working with data and managing databases with MySQL by Petit and Cosentino.

The first chapter introduces database architectures, data types, storage engines (including MyRocks), and data normalization. The following chapter cover in great detail how to create a database, using MySQL Workbench, backups & restoring data, and creating indexes. Chapter four has a very good section on working with SQL, functions, and case statements. Then JOINs and stored procedures are covered.

In another book, that would probably be enough content, but later chapters plunge into using Node.JS, Access, and Excel with …

MySQL allows changing the location of the general log and the slow query log while the server is running by anybody having the SYSTEM_VARIABLES_ADMIN privilege to any location, including appending to existing files. In Percona Server for MySQL 8.0.28-19 we introduced a new system variable, secure-log-path, that can be used to restrict the location of these log files to avoid accidents or possible data corruption attacks.

When somebody with the system variables admin privilege changes these variables, the server runs a few sanity checks. Unfortunately, these checks are quite minimal, and only verify that the specified file is writable by mysqld.

Compared to this, other variables specifying write-related file and directory names are either read-only during the runtime of the server (such as datadir, tmpdir, or log_error), or have additional …

This post covers filtering in the WHERE clause conditional using the MySQL BETWEEN operator. Continue reading this excerpt of premium MySQL content I’m creating for anyone to learn how to use MySQL…

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.

Suggested Reading

Visit any of these MySQL beginner-friendly articles for additional free learning resources:

• SELECT clause queries – MySQL Beginner Basics Series.
• …

Welcome back to this week’s OpenLampTech newsletter issue. In addition to the great PHP/MySQL content, I’ve edited one of the sections so there is a new feel to the publication. Enjoy reading the content!

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.

In OpenLampTech issue #27, you will find coverage on:

• PHP nonces
• WordPress backup plugin comparison
• MySQL deadlocks
• A free MySQL eBook link
• And, much …

Getting started with authentication_oci There is a new means of connecting seamlessly to a MySQL Database Service instance in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. It is a method that does not require passwords, and can utilize the public key found in a OCI user’s account profile, without anyone needing to access that profile directly . It derives its access… Read More »

Watch this quick in-depth video short and learn how to find all the calendar days for a specific month using built-in MySQL date functions and recursive Common Table Expressions (CTEs). This is a repost of a free article over on my Kofi page as part of the “MySQL Learning Tier” membership…

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.

Image by  …

Your one-stop source for excellent PHP/MySQL technical content is here again this week for your reading pleasure. Enjoy this selection of articles I read and learned something from this week. Thank you for being here!

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.

OpenLampTech issue #26 has great articles covering:

• PHP Laravel try/catch
• WordPress block patterns
• How to backup and restore a MySQL database
• PHP redirection
• And, much much …

Almost a Ripley’s Believe It or Not. An prior data science student told me that his new IT department setup a Windows component that let him connect his Excel Spreadsheets to their production MySQL database without a password. Intrigued, I asked if it was a MySQL Connector/ODBC Data Source Configuration, or DSN (Data Source Name)?

He wasn’t sure, so I asked him to connect to PowerShell and run the following command:

Get-Item -Path Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI\MySQL

It returned something like this (substituting output from one of my test systems):

    Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI


Name                           Property
----                           --------
MySQL                          Driver      : C:\Program Files\MySQL\Connector ODBC 8.0\myodbc8w.dll
                               DESCRIPTION : MySQL ODBC Connector
                               SERVER      : …

In a previous post, I explained how you can collect and plot metrics using MySQL Shell.

This is a new series of article where I will explain how to read and understand some of the generated graphs.

Understanding your workload and seeing the evolution of it over time can help anticipating problems and work on solutions before the breakdown.

Let’s start the series with a concept that is not always well understood or at least not always considered at its true value: MySQL Checkpoint Age.

example of checkpoint age graphInnoDB Checkpointing

Before analyzing the graph, we need to understand what is MySQL InnoDB Checkpointing.

Each change to a data page in the InnoDB Buffer Pool are also written into the Write Ahead Logs.

In the literature they are sometimes called Transaction …