13 SQL Statement Syntax

This chapter describes the syntax for the SQL statements supported in MySQL.

13.1 Data Manipulation Statements

13.1.1 DELETE Syntax

Single-table syntax:

DELETE [LOW_PRIORITY] [QUICK] [IGNORE] FROM tbl_name
       [WHERE where_definition]
       [ORDER BY ...]
       [LIMIT row_count]

Multiple-table syntax:

DELETE [LOW_PRIORITY] [QUICK] [IGNORE]
       tbl_name[.*] [, tbl_name[.*] ...]
       FROM table_references
       [WHERE where_definition]

Or:

DELETE [LOW_PRIORITY] [QUICK] [IGNORE]
       FROM tbl_name[.*] [, tbl_name[.*] ...]
       USING table_references
       [WHERE where_definition]

DELETE deletes rows from tbl_name that satisfy the condition given by where_definition, and returns the number of records deleted.

If you issue a DELETE statement with no WHERE clause, all rows are deleted. A faster way to do this, when you don't want to know the number of deleted rows, is to use TRUNCATE TABLE. See section 13.1.9 TRUNCATE Syntax.

In MySQL 3.23, DELETE without a WHERE clause returns zero as the number of affected records.

In MySQL 3.23, if you really want to know how many records are deleted when you are deleting all rows, and are willing to suffer a speed penalty, you can use a DELETE statement that includes a WHERE clause with an expression that is true for every row. For example:

mysql> DELETE FROM tbl_name WHERE 1>0;

This is much slower than TRUNCATE tbl_name, because it deletes rows one at a time.

If you delete the row containing the maximum value for an AUTO_INCREMENT column, the value will be reused for an ISAM or BDB table, but not for a MyISAM or InnoDB table. If you delete all rows in the table with DELETE FROM tbl_name (without a WHERE) in AUTOCOMMIT mode, the sequence starts over for all table types except for InnoDB and (as of MySQL 4.0) MyISAM. There are some exceptions to this behavior for InnoDB tables, discussed in section 15.7.3 How an AUTO_INCREMENT Column Works in InnoDB.

For MyISAM and BDB tables, you can specify an AUTO_INCREMENT secondary column in a multiple-column key. In this case, reuse of values deleted from the top of the sequence occurs even for MyISAM tables. See section 3.6.9 Using AUTO_INCREMENT.

The DELETE statement supports the following modifiers:

• If you specify the LOW_PRIORITY keyword, execution of the DELETE is delayed until no other clients are reading from the table.
• For MyISAM tables, if you specify the QUICK keyword, the storage engine does not merge index leaves during delete, which may speed up certain kind of deletes.
• The IGNORE keyword causes MySQL to ignore all errors during the process of deleting rows. (Errors encountered during the parsing stage are processed in the usual manner.) Errors that are ignored due to the use of this option are returned as warnings. This option first appeared in MySQL 4.1.1.

The speed of delete operations may also be affected by factors discussed in section 7.2.16 Speed of DELETE Statements.

In MyISAM tables, deleted records are maintained in a linked list and subsequent INSERT operations reuse old record positions. To reclaim unused space and reduce file sizes, use the OPTIMIZE TABLE statement or the myisamchk utility to reorganize tables. OPTIMIZE TABLE is easier, but myisamchk is faster. See section 13.5.2.5 OPTIMIZE TABLE Syntax and section 5.7.2.10 Table Optimization.

The QUICK modifier affects whether index leaves are merged for delete operations. DELETE QUICK is most useful for applications where index values for deleted rows will be replaced by similar index values from rows inserted later. In this case, the holes left by deleted values will be reused.

DELETE QUICK is not useful when deleted values lead to underfilled index blocks spanning a range of index values for which new inserts will occur again. In this case, use of QUICK can lead to wasted space in the index that remains unreclaimed. Here is an example of such a scenario:

1. Create a table that contains an indexed AUTO_INCREMENT column.
2. Insert many records into the table. Each insert results in an index values that is added to the high end of the index.
3. Delete a block of records at the low end of the column range using DELETE QUICK.

In this scenario, the index blocks associated with the deleted index values become underfilled but are not merged with other index blocks due to the use of QUICK. They will remain underfilled when new inserts occur, because new records will not have index values in the deleted range. Furthermore, they will remain underfilled even if you later use DELETE without QUICK, unless some of the deleted index values happen to lie in index blocks within or adjacent to the underfilled blocks. To reclaim unused index space under these circumstances, you can use OPTIMIZE TABLE.

If you are going to delete many rows from a table, it might be faster to use DELETE QUICK followed by OPTIMIZE TABLE. This rebuilds the index rather than performing many index block merge operations.

The MySQL-specific LIMIT row_count option to DELETE tells the server the maximum number of rows to be deleted before control is returned to the client. This can be used to ensure that a specific DELETE statement doesn't take too much time. You can simply repeat the DELETE statement until the number of affected rows is less than the LIMIT value.

If the DELETE statement includes an ORDER BY clause, the rows are deleted in the order specified by the clause. This is really useful only in conjunction with LIMIT. For example, the following statement finds rows matching the WHERE clause, sorts them in timestamp order, and deletes the first (oldest) one:

DELETE FROM somelog
WHERE user = 'jcole'
ORDER BY timestamp
LIMIT 1

ORDER BY can be used with DELETE beginning with MySQL 4.0.0.

From MySQL 4.0, you can specify multiple tables in the DELETE statement to delete rows from one or more tables depending on a particular condition in multiple tables. However, you cannot use ORDER BY or LIMIT in a multiple-table DELETE.

The first multiple-table DELETE syntax is supported starting from MySQL 4.0.0. The second is supported starting from MySQL 4.0.2. The table_references part lists the tables involved in the join. Its syntax is described in section 13.1.7.1 JOIN Syntax.

For the first syntax, only matching rows from the tables listed before the FROM clause are deleted. For the second syntax, only matching rows from the tables listed in the FROM clause (before the USING clause) are deleted. The effect is that you can delete rows from many tables at the same time and also have additional tables that are used for searching:

DELETE t1, t2 FROM t1, t2, t3 WHERE t1.id=t2.id AND t2.id=t3.id;

Or:

DELETE FROM t1, t2 USING t1, t2, t3 WHERE t1.id=t2.id AND t2.id=t3.id;

These statements use all three files when searching for rows to delete, but delete matching rows only from tables t1 and t2.

The examples show inner joins using the comma operator, but multiple-table DELETE statements can use any type of join allowed in SELECT statements, such as LEFT JOIN.

The syntax allows .* after the table names for compatibility with Access.

If you use a multiple-table DELETE statement involving InnoDB tables for which there are foreign key constraints, the MySQL optimizer might process tables in an order that differs from that of their parent/child relationship. In this case, the statement fails and rolls back. Instead, delete from a single table and rely on the ON DELETE capabilities that InnoDB provides to cause the other tables to be modified accordingly.

Note: In MySQL 4.0, you should refer to the table names to be deleted with the true table name. In MySQL 4.1, you must use the alias (if one was given) when referring to a table name:

In MySQL 4.0:

DELETE test FROM test AS t1, test2 WHERE ...

In MySQL 4.1:

DELETE t1 FROM test AS t1, test2 WHERE ...

The reason we didn't make this change in 4.0 is that we didn't want to break any old 4.0 applications that were using the old syntax.

Currently, you cannot delete from a table and select from the same table in a subquery.

13.1.2 DO Syntax

DO expr [, expr] ...

DO executes the expressions but doesn't return any results. This is shorthand for SELECT expr, ..., but has the advantage that it's slightly faster when you don't care about the result.

DO is useful mainly with functions that have side effects, such as RELEASE_LOCK().

DO was added in MySQL 3.23.47.

13.1.3 HANDLER Syntax

HANDLER tbl_name OPEN [ AS alias ]
HANDLER tbl_name READ index_name { = | >= | <= | < } (value1,value2,...)
    [ WHERE where_condition ] [LIMIT ... ]
HANDLER tbl_name READ index_name { FIRST | NEXT | PREV | LAST }
    [ WHERE where_condition ] [LIMIT ... ]
HANDLER tbl_name READ { FIRST | NEXT }
    [ WHERE where_condition ] [LIMIT ... ]
HANDLER tbl_name CLOSE

The HANDLER statement provides direct access to table storage engine interfaces. It is available for MyISAM tables as MySQL 4.0.0 and InnoDB tables as of MySQL 4.0.3.

The HANDLER ... OPEN statement opens a table, making it accessible via subsequent HANDLER ... READ statements. This table object is not shared by other threads and is not closed until the thread calls HANDLER ... CLOSE or the thread terminates. If you open the table using an alias, further references to the table with other HANDLER statements must use the alias rather than the table name.

The first HANDLER ... READ syntax fetches a row where the index specified satisfies the given values and the WHERE condition is met. If you have a multiple-column index, specify the index column values as a comma-separated list. Either specify values for all the columns in the index, or specify values for a leftmost prefix of the index columns. Suppose that an index includes three columns named col_a, col_b, and col_c, in that order. The HANDLER statement can specify values for all three columns in the index, or for the columns in a leftmost prefix. For example:

HANDLER ... index_name = (col_a_val,col_b_val,col_c_val) ...
HANDLER ... index_name = (col_a_val,col_b_val) ...
HANDLER ... index_name = (col_a_val) ...

The second HANDLER ... READ syntax fetches a row from the table in index order that matches WHERE condition.

The third HANDLER ... READ syntax fetches a row from the table in natural row order that matches the WHERE condition. It is faster than HANDLER tbl_name READ index_name when a full table scan is desired. Natural row order is the order in which rows are stored in a MyISAM table data file. This statement works for InnoDB tables as well, but there is no such concept because there is no separate data file.

Without a LIMIT clause, all forms of HANDLER ... READ fetch a single row if one is available. To return a specific number of rows, include a LIMIT clause. It has the same syntax as for the SELECT statement. See section 13.1.7 SELECT Syntax.

HANDLER ... CLOSE closes a table that was opened with HANDLER ... OPEN.

Note: To use the HANDLER interface to refer to a table's PRIMARY KEY, use the quoted identifier `PRIMARY`:

HANDLER tbl_name READ `PRIMARY` > (...);

HANDLER is a somewhat low-level statement. For example, it does not provide consistency. That is, HANDLER ... OPEN does not take a snapshot of the table, and does not lock the table. This means that after a HANDLER ... OPEN statement is issued, table data can be modified (by this or any other thread) and these modifications might appear only partially in HANDLER ... NEXT or HANDLER ... PREV scans.

There are several reasons to use the HANDLER interface instead of normal SELECT statements:

• HANDLER is faster than SELECT:
  • A designated storage engine handler object is allocated for the HANDLER ... OPEN. The object is reused for the following HANDLER statements for the table; it need not be reinitialized for each one.
  • There is less parsing involved.
  • There is no optimizer or query-checking overhead.
  • The table doesn't have to be locked between two handler requests.
  • The handler interface doesn't have to provide a consistent look of the data (for example, dirty reads are allowed), so the storage engine can use optimizations that SELECT doesn't normally allow.
• HANDLER makes it much easier to port applications that use an ISAM-like interface to MySQL.
• HANDLER allows you to traverse a database in a manner that is not easy (or perhaps even impossible) to do with SELECT. The HANDLER interface is a more natural way to look at data when working with applications that provide an interactive user interface to the database.

13.1.4 INSERT Syntax

INSERT [LOW_PRIORITY | DELAYED | HIGH_PRIORITY] [IGNORE]
    [INTO] tbl_name [(col_name,...)]
    VALUES ({expr | DEFAULT},...),(...),...
    [ ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE col_name=expr, ... ]

Or:

INSERT [LOW_PRIORITY | DELAYED | HIGH_PRIORITY] [IGNORE]
    [INTO] tbl_name
    SET col_name={expr | DEFAULT}, ...
    [ ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE col_name=expr, ... ]

Or:

INSERT [LOW_PRIORITY | DELAYED | HIGH_PRIORITY] [IGNORE]
    [INTO] tbl_name [(col_name,...)]
    SELECT ...

INSERT inserts new rows into an existing table. The INSERT ... VALUES and INSERT ... SET forms of the statement insert rows based on explicitly specified values. The INSERT ... SELECT form inserts rows selected from another table or tables. The INSERT ... VALUES form with multiple value lists is supported in MySQL 3.22.5 or later. The INSERT ... SET syntax is supported in MySQL 3.22.10 or later. INSERT ... SELECT is discussed further in See section 13.1.4.1 INSERT ... SELECT Syntax.

tbl_name is the table into which rows should be inserted. The columns for which the statement provides values can be specified as follows:

• The column name list or the SET clause indicates the columns explicitly.
• If you do not specify the column list for INSERT ... VALUES or INSERT ... SELECT, values for every column in the table must be provided in the VALUES() list or by the SELECT. If you don't know the order of the columns in the table, use DESCRIBE tbl_name to find out.

Column values can be given in several ways:

• If you are not running in strict mode, any column not explicitly given a value is set to its default (explicit or implicit) value. For example, if you specify a column list that doesn't name all the columns in the table, unnamed columns are set to their default values. Default value assignment is described in section 13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax. See section 1.5.6.2 Constraints on Invalid Data. If you want INSERT statements to generate an error unless you explicitly specify values for all columns that don't have a default value, you should use STRICT mode. See section 5.2.2 The Server SQL Mode.
• You can use the keyword DEFAULT to explicitly set a column to its default value. (New in MySQL 4.0.3.) This makes it easier to write INSERT statements that assign values to all but a few columns, because it allows you to avoid writing an incomplete VALUES list that does not include a value for each column in the table. Otherwise, you would have to write out the list of column names corresponding to each value in the VALUES list. As of MySQL 4.1.0, you can use DEFAULT(col_name) as a more general form that can be used in expressions to produce a column's default value.
• If both the column list and the VALUES list are empty, INSERT creates a row with each column set to its default value:

  mysql> INSERT INTO tbl_name () VALUES();
  

• You can specify an expression expr to provide a column value. This might involve type conversion if the type of the expression does not match the type of the column, and conversion of a given value can result in different inserted values depending on the column type. For example, inserting the string '1999.0e-2' into an INT, FLOAT, DECIMAL(10,6), or YEAR column results in the values 1999, 19.9921, 19.992100, and 1999. The reason the value stored in the INT and YEAR columns is 1999 is that the string-to-integer conversion looks only at as much of the initial part of the string as may be considered a valid integer or year. For the floating-point and fixed-point columns, the string-to-floating-point conversion considers the entire string as a valid floating-point value. An expression expr can refer to any column that was set earlier in a value list. For example, you can do this because the value for col2 refers to col1, which has already been assigned:

  mysql> INSERT INTO tbl_name (col1,col2) VALUES(15,col1*2);
  

  But you cannot do this because the value for col1 refers to col2, which is assigned after col1:

  mysql> INSERT INTO tbl_name (col1,col2) VALUES(col2*2,15);
  

  One exception involves columns that contain AUTO_INCREMENT values. Because the AUTO_INCREMENT value is generated after other value assignments, any reference to an AUTO_INCREMENT column in the assignment will return a 0.

The INSERT statement supports the following modifiers:

• If you specify the DELAYED keyword, the server puts the row or rows to be inserted into a buffer, and the client issuing the INSERT DELAYED statement then can continue on. If the table is busy, the server holds the rows. When the table becomes free, it begins inserting rows, checking periodically to see whether there are new read requests for the table. If there are, the delayed row queue is suspended until the table becomes free again. See section 13.1.4.2 INSERT DELAYED Syntax. DELAYED was added in MySQL 3.22.5.
• If you specify the LOW_PRIORITY keyword, execution of the INSERT is delayed until no other clients are reading from the table. This includes other clients that began reading while existing clients are reading, and while the INSERT LOW_PRIORITY statement is waiting. It is possible, therefore, for a client that issues an INSERT LOW_PRIORITY statement to wait for a very long time (or even forever) in a read-heavy environment. (This is in contrast to INSERT DELAYED, which lets the client continue at once.) See section 13.1.4.2 INSERT DELAYED Syntax. Note that LOW_PRIORITY should normally not be used with MyISAM tables because doing so disables concurrent inserts. See section 14.1 The MyISAM Storage Engine. LOW_PRIORITY was added in MySQL 3.22.5.
• If you specify the HIGH_PRIORITY keyword, it overrides the effect of the --low-priority-updates option if the server was started with that option. It also causes concurrent inserts not to be used. HIGH_PRIORITY was added in MySQL 3.23.11.
• The rows-affected value for an INSERT can be obtained using the mysql_affected_rows() C API function. See section 21.2.3.1 mysql_affected_rows().
• If you specify the IGNORE keyword in an INSERT statement, errors that occur while executing the statement are treated as warnings instead. For example, without IGNORE, a row that duplicates an existing UNIQUE index or PRIMARY KEY value in the table causes a duplicate-key error and the statement is aborted. With IGNORE, the error is ignored and the row is not inserted. Data conversions that would trigger errors abort the statement if IGNORE is not specified. With IGNORE, invalid values are adjusted to the closest value values and inserted; warnings are produced but the statement does not abort. You can determine with the mysql_info() C API function how many rows were inserted into the table.

If you specify the ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE clause (new in MySQL 4.1.0), and a row is inserted that would cause a duplicate value in a UNIQUE index or PRIMARY KEY, an UPDATE of the old row is performed. For example, if column a is declared as UNIQUE and already contains the value 1, the following two statements have identical effect:

mysql> INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (1,2,3)
    -> ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=c+1;

mysql> UPDATE table SET c=c+1 WHERE a=1;

The rows-affected value is 1 if the row is inserted as a new record and 2 if an existing record is updated.

Note: If column b is unique too, the INSERT would be equivalent to this UPDATE statement instead:

mysql> UPDATE table SET c=c+1 WHERE a=1 OR b=2 LIMIT 1;

If a=1 OR b=2 matches several rows, only one row is updated! In general, you should try to avoid using the ON DUPLICATE KEY clause on tables with multiple UNIQUE keys.

As of MySQL 4.1.1, you can use the VALUES(col_name) function in the UPDATE clause to refer to column values from the INSERT part of the INSERT ... UPDATE statement. In other words, VALUES(col_name) in the UPDATE clause refers to the value of col_name that would be inserted if no duplicate-key conflict occurred. This function is especially useful in multiple-row inserts. The VALUES() function is meaningful only in INSERT ... UPDATE statements and returns NULL otherwise.

Example:

mysql> INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (1,2,3),(4,5,6)
    -> ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=VALUES(a)+VALUES(b);

That statement is identical to the following two statements:

mysql> INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (1,2,3)
    -> ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=3;
mysql> INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (4,5,6)
    -> ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=9;

When you use ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE, the DELAYED option is ignored.

You can find the value used for an AUTO_INCREMENT column by using the LAST_INSERT_ID() function. From within the C API, use the mysql_insert_id() function. However, note that the two functions do not behave quite identically under all circumstances. The behavior of INSERT statements with respect to AUTO_INCREMENT columns is discussed further in section 12.8.3 Information Functions and section 21.2.3.33 mysql_insert_id().

If you use an INSERT ... VALUES statement with multiple value lists or INSERT ... SELECT, the statement returns an information string in this format:

Records: 100 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0

Records indicates the number of rows processed by the statement. (This is not necessarily the number of rows actually inserted. Duplicates can be non-zero.) Duplicates indicates the number of rows that couldn't be inserted because they would duplicate some existing unique index value. Warnings indicates the number of attempts to insert column values that were problematic in some way. Warnings can occur under any of the following conditions:

• Inserting NULL into a column that has been declared NOT NULL. For multiple-row INSERT statements or INSERT ... SELECT statements, the column is set to the default value appropriate for the column type. This is 0 for numeric types, the empty string ('') for string types, and the ``zero'' value for date and time types.
• Setting a numeric column to a value that lies outside the column's range. The value is clipped to the closest endpoint of the range.
• Assigning a value such as '10.34 a' to a numeric column. The trailing non-numeric text is stripped off and the remaining numeric part is inserted. If the string value has no leading numeric part, the column is set to 0.
• Inserting a string into a string column (CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT, or BLOB) that exceeds the column's maximum length. The value is truncated to the column's maximum length.
• Inserting a value into a date or time column that is illegal for the column type. The column is set to the appropriate zero value for the type.

If you are using the C API, the information string can be obtained by invoking the mysql_info() function. See section 21.2.3.31 mysql_info().

13.1.4.1 INSERT ... SELECT Syntax

INSERT [LOW_PRIORITY] [IGNORE] [INTO] tbl_name [(column_list)]
    SELECT ...

With INSERT ... SELECT, you can quickly insert many rows into a table from one or many tables.

For example:

INSERT INTO tbl_temp2 (fld_id)
    SELECT tbl_temp1.fld_order_id
    FROM tbl_temp1 WHERE tbl_temp1.fld_order_id > 100;

The following conditions hold for an INSERT ... SELECT statement:

• Prior to MySQL 4.0.1, INSERT ... SELECT implicitly operates in IGNORE mode. As of MySQL 4.0.1, specify IGNORE explicitly to ignore records that would cause duplicate-key violations.
• Do not use DELAYED with INSERT ... SELECT.
• Prior to MySQL 4.0.14, the target table of the INSERT statement cannot appear in the FROM clause of the SELECT part of the query. This limitation is lifted in 4.0.14.
• AUTO_INCREMENT columns work as usual.
• To ensure that the binary log can be used to re-create the original tables, MySQL will not allow concurrent inserts during INSERT ... SELECT.
• Currently, you cannot insert into a table and select from the same table in a subquery.

You can use REPLACE instead of INSERT to overwrite old rows. REPLACE is the counterpart to INSERT IGNORE in the treatment of new rows that contain unique key values that duplicate old rows: The new rows are used to replace the old rows rather than being discarded.

13.1.4.2 INSERT DELAYED Syntax

INSERT DELAYED ...

The DELAYED option for the INSERT statement is a MySQL extension to standard SQL that is very useful if you have clients that can't wait for the INSERT to complete. This is a common problem when you use MySQL for logging and you also periodically run SELECT and UPDATE statements that take a long time to complete. DELAYED was introduced in MySQL 3.22.15.

When a client uses INSERT DELAYED, it gets an okay from the server at once, and the row is queued to be inserted when the table is not in use by any other thread.

Another major benefit of using INSERT DELAYED is that inserts from many clients are bundled together and written in one block. This is much faster than doing many separate inserts.

There are some constraints on the use of DELAYED:

• INSERT DELAYED works only with MyISAM and ISAM tables. For MyISAM tables, if there are no free blocks in the middle of the data file, concurrent SELECT and INSERT statements are supported. Under these circumstances, you very seldom need to use INSERT DELAYED with MyISAM. See section 14.1 The MyISAM Storage Engine.
• INSERT DELAYED should be used only for INSERT statements that specify value lists. This is enforced as of MySQL 4.0.18. The server ignores DELAYED for INSERT DELAYED ... SELECT statements.
• The server ignores DELAYED for INSERT DELAYED ... ON DUPLICATE UPDATE statements.
• Because the statement returns immediately before the rows are inserted, you cannot use LAST_INSERT_ID() to get the AUTO_INCREMENT value the statement might generate.
• DELAYED rows are not visible to SELECT statements until they actually have been inserted.

Note that currently the queued rows are held only in memory until they are inserted into the table. This means that if you terminate mysqld forcibly (for example, with kill -9) or if mysqld dies unexpectedly, any queued rows that have not been written to disk are lost!

The following describes in detail what happens when you use the DELAYED option to INSERT or REPLACE. In this description, the ``thread'' is the thread that received an INSERT DELAYED statement and ``handler'' is the thread that handles all INSERT DELAYED statements for a particular table.

• When a thread executes a DELAYED statement for a table, a handler thread is created to process all DELAYED statements for the table, if no such handler already exists.
• The thread checks whether the handler has acquired a DELAYED lock already; if not, it tells the handler thread to do so. The DELAYED lock can be obtained even if other threads have a READ or WRITE lock on the table. However, the handler will wait for all ALTER TABLE locks or FLUSH TABLES to ensure that the table structure is up to date.
• The thread executes the INSERT statement, but instead of writing the row to the table, it puts a copy of the final row into a queue that is managed by the handler thread. Any syntax errors are noticed by the thread and reported to the client program.
• The client cannot obtain from the server the number of duplicate records or the AUTO_INCREMENT value for the resulting row, because the INSERT returns before the insert operation has been completed. (If you use the C API, the mysql_info() function doesn't return anything meaningful, for the same reason.)
• The binary log is updated by the handler thread when the row is inserted into the table. In case of multiple-row inserts, the binary log is updated when the first row is inserted.
• After every delayed_insert_limit rows are written, the handler checks whether any SELECT statements are still pending. If so, it allows these to execute before continuing.
• When the handler has no more rows in its queue, the table is unlocked. If no new INSERT DELAYED statements are received within delayed_insert_timeout seconds, the handler terminates.
• If more than delayed_queue_size rows are pending already in a specific handler queue, the thread requesting INSERT DELAYED waits until there is room in the queue. This is done to ensure that the mysqld server doesn't use all memory for the delayed memory queue.
• The handler thread shows up in the MySQL process list with delayed_insert in the Command column. It will be killed if you execute a FLUSH TABLES statement or kill it with KILL thread_id. However, before exiting, it will first store all queued rows into the table. During this time it will not accept any new INSERT statements from another thread. If you execute an INSERT DELAYED statement after this, a new handler thread will be created. Note that this means that INSERT DELAYED statements have higher priority than normal INSERT statements if there is an INSERT DELAYED handler already running! Other update statements will have to wait until the INSERT DELAYED queue is empty, someone terminates the handler thread (with KILL thread_id), or someone executes FLUSH TABLES.
• The following status variables provide information about INSERT DELAYED statements:

  Status Variable	Meaning
  Delayed_insert_threads	Number of handler threads
  Delayed_writes	Number of rows written with INSERT DELAYED
  Not_flushed_delayed_rows	Number of rows waiting to be written

  You can view these variables by issuing a SHOW STATUS statement or by executing a mysqladmin extended-status command.

Note that INSERT DELAYED is slower than a normal INSERT if the table is not in use. There is also the additional overhead for the server to handle a separate thread for each table for which there are delayed rows. This means that you should use INSERT DELAYED only when you are really sure that you need it!

13.1.5 LOAD DATA INFILE Syntax

LOAD DATA [LOW_PRIORITY | CONCURRENT] [LOCAL] INFILE 'file_name.txt'
    [REPLACE | IGNORE]
    INTO TABLE tbl_name
    [FIELDS
        [TERMINATED BY '\t']
        [[OPTIONALLY] ENCLOSED BY '']
        [ESCAPED BY '\\' ]
    ]
    [LINES 
        [STARTING BY '']    
        [TERMINATED BY '\n']
    ]
    [IGNORE number LINES]
    [(col_name,...)]

The LOAD DATA INFILE statement reads rows from a text file into a table at a very high speed. For more information about the efficiency of INSERT versus LOAD DATA INFILE and speeding up LOAD DATA INFILE, section 7.2.14 Speed of INSERT Statements.

You can also load data files by using the mysqlimport utility; it operates by sending a LOAD DATA INFILE statement to the server. The --local option causes mysqlimport to read data files from the client host. You can specify the --compress option to get better performance over slow networks if the client and server support the compressed protocol. See section 8.10 The mysqlimport Data Import Program.

If you specify the LOW_PRIORITY keyword, execution of the LOAD DATA statement is delayed until no other clients are reading from the table.

If you specify the CONCURRENT keyword with a MyISAM table that satisfies the condition for concurrent inserts (that is, it contains no free blocks in the middle), then other threads can retrieve data from the table while LOAD DATA is executing. Using this option affects the performance of LOAD DATA a bit, even if no other thread is using the table at the same time.

If the LOCAL keyword is specified, it is interpreted with respect to the client end of the connection:

• If LOCAL is specified, the file is read by the client program on the client host and sent to the server.
• If LOCAL is not specified, the file must be located on the server host and is read directly by the server.

LOCAL is available in MySQL 3.22.6 or later.

For security reasons, when reading text files located on the server, the files must either reside in the database directory or be readable by all. Also, to use LOAD DATA INFILE on server files, you must have the FILE privilege. See section 5.5.3 Privileges Provided by MySQL.

Using LOCAL is a bit slower than letting the server access the files directly, because the contents of the file must be sent over the connection by the client to the server. On the other hand, you do not need the FILE privilege to load local files.

As of MySQL 3.23.49 and MySQL 4.0.2 (4.0.13 on Windows), LOCAL works only if your server and your client both have been enabled to allow it. For example, if mysqld was started with --local-infile=0, LOCAL will not work. See section 5.4.4 Security Issues with LOAD DATA LOCAL.

If you need LOAD DATA to read from a pipe, you can use the following technique (here we load the listing of the '/' directory into a table):

mkfifo /mysql/db/x/x
chmod 666 /mysql/db/x/x
find / -ls > /mysql/db/x/x
mysql -e "LOAD DATA INFILE 'x' INTO TABLE x" x

If you are using a version of MySQL older than 3.23.25, you can use this technique only with LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE.

If you are using MySQL before Version 3.23.24, you can't read from a FIFO with LOAD DATA INFILE. If you need to read from a FIFO (for example, the output from gunzip), use LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE instead.

When locating files on the server host, the server uses the following rules:

• If an absolute pathname is given, the server uses the pathname as is.
• If a relative pathname with one or more leading components is given, the server searches for the file relative to the server's data directory.
• If a filename with no leading components is given, the server looks for the file in the database directory of the default database.

Note that these rules mean that a file named as `./myfile.txt' is read from the server's data directory, whereas the same file named as `myfile.txt' is read from the database directory of the default database. For example, the following LOAD DATA statement reads the file `data.txt' from the database directory for db1 because db1 is the current database, even though the statement explicitly loads the file into a table in the db2 database:

mysql> USE db1;
mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE 'data.txt' INTO TABLE db2.my_table;

The REPLACE and IGNORE keywords control handling of input records that duplicate existing records on unique key values.

If you specify REPLACE, input rows replace existing rows (in other words, rows that have the same value for a primary or unique index as an existing row). See section 13.1.6 REPLACE Syntax.

If you specify IGNORE, input rows that duplicate an existing row on a unique key value are skipped. If you don't specify either option, the behavior depends on whether or not the LOCAL keyword is specified. Without LOCAL, an error occurs when a duplicate key value is found, and the rest of the text file is ignored. With LOCAL, the default behavior is the same as if IGNORE is specified; this is because the server has no way to stop transmission of the file in the middle of the operation.

If you want to ignore foreign key constraints during the load operation, you can issue a SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0 statement before executing LOAD DATA.

If you use LOAD DATA INFILE on an empty MyISAM table, all non-unique indexes are created in a separate batch (as for REPAIR TABLE). This normally makes LOAD DATA INFILE much faster when you have many indexes. Normally this is very fast, but in some extreme cases, you can create the indexes even faster by turning them off with ALTER TABLE .. DISABLE KEYS before loading the file into the table and using ALTER TABLE .. ENABLE KEYS to re-create the indexes after loading the file. See section 7.2.14 Speed of INSERT Statements.

LOAD DATA INFILE is the complement of SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE. See section 13.1.7 SELECT Syntax. To write data from a table to a file, use SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE. To read the file back into a table, use LOAD DATA INFILE. The syntax of the FIELDS and LINES clauses is the same for both statements. Both clauses are optional, but FIELDS must precede LINES if both are specified.

If you specify a FIELDS clause, each of its subclauses (TERMINATED BY, [OPTIONALLY] ENCLOSED BY, and ESCAPED BY) is also optional, except that you must specify at least one of them.

If you don't specify a FIELDS clause, the defaults are the same as if you had written this:

FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t' ENCLOSED BY '' ESCAPED BY '\\'

If you don't specify a LINES clause, the default is the same as if you had written this:

LINES TERMINATED BY '\n' STARTING BY ''

In other words, the defaults cause LOAD DATA INFILE to act as follows when reading input:

• Look for line boundaries at newlines.
• Do not skip over any line prefix.
• Break lines into fields at tabs.
• Do not expect fields to be enclosed within any quoting characters.
• Interpret occurrences of tab, newline, or `\' preceded by `\' as literal characters that are part of field values.

Conversely, the defaults cause SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE to act as follows when writing output:

• Write tabs between fields.
• Do not enclose fields within any quoting characters.
• Use `\' to escape instances of tab, newline, or `\' that occur within field values.
• Write newlines at the ends of lines.

Note that to write FIELDS ESCAPED BY '\\', you must specify two backslashes for the value to be read as a single backslash.

Note: If you have generated the text file on a Windows system, you might have to use LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n' to read the file properly, because Windows programs typically use two characters as a line terminator. Some programs, such as WordPad, might use \r as a line terminator when writing files. To read such files, use LINES TERMINATED BY '\r'.

If all the lines you want to read in have a common prefix that you want to ignore, you can use LINES STARTING BY 'prefix_string' to skip over the prefix (and anything before it). If a line doesn't include the prefix, the entire line is skipped. Note that prefix_string may be in the middle of the line!

Example:

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE '/tmp/test.txt'
    -> INTO TABLE test LINES STARTING BY "xxx";

With this you can read in a file that contains something like:

xxx"Row",1
something xxx"Row",2

And just get the data ("row",1) and ("row",2).

The IGNORE number LINES option can be used to ignore lines at the start of the file. For example, you can use IGNORE 1 LINES to skip over an initial header line containing column names:

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE '/tmp/test.txt'
    -> INTO TABLE test IGNORE 1 LINES;

When you use SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE in tandem with LOAD DATA INFILE to write data from a database into a file and then read the file back into the database later, the field- and line-handling options for both statements must match. Otherwise, LOAD DATA INFILE will not interpret the contents of the file properly. Suppose that you use SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE to write a file with fields delimited by commas:

mysql> SELECT * INTO OUTFILE 'data.txt'
    ->          FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
    ->          FROM table2;

To read the comma-delimited file back in, the correct statement would be:

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE 'data.txt' INTO TABLE table2
    ->           FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',';

If instead you tried to read in the file with the statement shown here, it wouldn't work because it instructs LOAD DATA INFILE to look for tabs between fields:

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE 'data.txt' INTO TABLE table2
    ->           FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t';

The likely result is that each input line would be interpreted as a single field.

LOAD DATA INFILE can be used to read files obtained from external sources, too. For example, a file in dBASE format will have fields separated by commas and enclosed within double quotes. If lines in the file are terminated by newlines, the statement shown here illustrates the field- and line-handling options you would use to load the file:

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE 'data.txt' INTO TABLE tbl_name
    ->           FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"'
    ->           LINES TERMINATED BY '\n';

Any of the field- or line-handling options can specify an empty string (''). If not empty, the FIELDS [OPTIONALLY] ENCLOSED BY and FIELDS ESCAPED BY values must be a single character. The FIELDS TERMINATED BY, LINES STARTING BY, and LINES TERMINATED BY values can be more than one character. For example, to write lines that are terminated by carriage return/linefeed pairs, or to read a file containing such lines, specify a LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n' clause.

To read a file containing jokes that are separated by lines consisting of %%, you can do this

mysql> CREATE TABLE jokes
    ->     (a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    ->     joke TEXT NOT NULL);
mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE '/tmp/jokes.txt' INTO TABLE jokes
    ->     FIELDS TERMINATED BY ''
    ->     LINES TERMINATED BY '\n%%\n' (joke);

FIELDS [OPTIONALLY] ENCLOSED BY controls quoting of fields. For output (SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE), if you omit the word OPTIONALLY, all fields are enclosed by the ENCLOSED BY character. An example of such output (using a comma as the field delimiter) is shown here:

"1","a string","100.20"
"2","a string containing a , comma","102.20"
"3","a string containing a \" quote","102.20"
"4","a string containing a \", quote and comma","102.20"

If you specify OPTIONALLY, the ENCLOSED BY character is used only to enclose CHAR and VARCHAR fields:

1,"a string",100.20
2,"a string containing a , comma",102.20
3,"a string containing a \" quote",102.20
4,"a string containing a \", quote and comma",102.20

Note that occurrences of the ENCLOSED BY character within a field value are escaped by prefixing them with the ESCAPED BY character. Also note that if you specify an empty ESCAPED BY value, it is possible to generate output that cannot be read properly by LOAD DATA INFILE. For example, the preceding output just shown would appear as follows if the escape character is empty. Observe that the second field in the fourth line contains a comma following the quote, which (erroneously) appears to terminate the field:

1,"a string",100.20
2,"a string containing a , comma",102.20
3,"a string containing a " quote",102.20
4,"a string containing a ", quote and comma",102.20

For input, the ENCLOSED BY character, if present, is stripped from the ends of field values. (This is true whether or not OPTIONALLY is specified; OPTIONALLY has no effect on input interpretation.) Occurrences of the ENCLOSED BY character preceded by the ESCAPED BY character are interpreted as part of the current field value.

If the field begins with the ENCLOSED BY character, instances of that character are recognized as terminating a field value only if followed by the field or line TERMINATED BY sequence. To avoid ambiguity, occurrences of the ENCLOSED BY character within a field value can be doubled and will be interpreted as a single instance of the character. For example, if ENCLOSED BY '"' is specified, quotes are handled as shown here:

"The ""BIG"" boss"  -> The "BIG" boss
The "BIG" boss      -> The "BIG" boss
The ""BIG"" boss    -> The ""BIG"" boss

FIELDS ESCAPED BY controls how to write or read special characters. If the FIELDS ESCAPED BY character is not empty, it is used to prefix the following characters on output:

• The FIELDS ESCAPED BY character
• The FIELDS [OPTIONALLY] ENCLOSED BY character
• The first character of the FIELDS TERMINATED BY and LINES TERMINATED BY values
• ASCII 0 (what is actually written following the escape character is ASCII `0', not a zero-valued byte)

If the FIELDS ESCAPED BY character is empty, no characters are escaped and NULL is output as NULL, not \N. It is probably not a good idea to specify an empty escape character, particularly if field values in your data contain any of the characters in the list just given.

For input, if the FIELDS ESCAPED BY character is not empty, occurrences of that character are stripped and the following character is taken literally as part of a field value. The exceptions are an escaped `0' or `N' (for example, \0 or \N if the escape character is `\'). These sequences are interpreted as ASCII NUL (a zero-valued byte) and NULL. The rules for NULL handling are described later in this section.

For more information about `\'-escape syntax, see section 9.1 Literal Values.

In certain cases, field- and line-handling options interact:

• If LINES TERMINATED BY is an empty string and FIELDS TERMINATED BY is non-empty, lines are also terminated with FIELDS TERMINATED BY.
• If the FIELDS TERMINATED BY and FIELDS ENCLOSED BY values are both empty (''), a fixed-row (non-delimited) format is used. With fixed-row format, no delimiters are used between fields (but you can still have a line terminator). Instead, column values are written and read using the ``display'' widths of the columns. For example, if a column is declared as INT(7), values for the column are written using seven-character fields. On input, values for the column are obtained by reading seven characters. LINES TERMINATED BY is still used to separate lines. If a line doesn't contain all fields, the rest of the columns are set to their default values. If you don't have a line terminator, you should set this to ''. In this case, the text file must contain all fields for each row. Fixed-row format also affects handling of NULL values, as described later. Note that fixed-size format will not work if you are using a multi-byte character set.

Handling of NULL values varies according to the FIELDS and LINES options in use:

• For the default FIELDS and LINES values, NULL is written as a field value of \N for output, and a field value of \N is read as NULL for input (assuming that the ESCAPED BY character is `\').
• If FIELDS ENCLOSED BY is not empty, a field containing the literal word NULL as its value is read as a NULL value. This differs from the word NULL enclosed within FIELDS ENCLOSED BY characters, which is read as the string 'NULL'.
• If FIELDS ESCAPED BY is empty, NULL is written as the word NULL.
• With fixed-row format (which happens when FIELDS TERMINATED BY and FIELDS ENCLOSED BY are both empty), NULL is written as an empty string. Note that this causes both NULL values and empty strings in the table to be indistinguishable when written to the file because they are both written as empty strings. If you need to be able to tell the two apart when reading the file back in, you should not use fixed-row format.

Some cases are not supported by LOAD DATA INFILE:

• Fixed-size rows (FIELDS TERMINATED BY and FIELDS ENCLOSED BY both empty) and BLOB or TEXT columns.
• If you specify one separator that is the same as or a prefix of another, LOAD DATA INFILE won't be able to interpret the input properly. For example, the following FIELDS clause would cause problems:

  FIELDS TERMINATED BY '"' ENCLOSED BY '"'
  

• If FIELDS ESCAPED BY is empty, a field value that contains an occurrence of FIELDS ENCLOSED BY or LINES TERMINATED BY followed by the FIELDS TERMINATED BY value will cause LOAD DATA INFILE to stop reading a field or line too early. This happens because LOAD DATA INFILE cannot properly determine where the field or line value ends.

The following example loads all columns of the persondata table:

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE 'persondata.txt' INTO TABLE persondata;

By default, when no column list is provided at the end of the LOAD DATA INFILE statement, input lines are expected to contain a field for each table column. If you want to load only some of a table's columns, specify a column list:

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE 'persondata.txt'
    ->           INTO TABLE persondata (col1,col2,...);

You must also specify a column list if the order of the fields in the input file differs from the order of the columns in the table. Otherwise, MySQL cannot tell how to match up input fields with table columns.

If an input line has too many fields, the extra fields are ignored and the number of warnings is incremented.

If an input line has too few fields, the table columns for which input fields are missing are set to their default values. Default value assignment is described in section 13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax.

An empty field value is interpreted differently than if the field value is missing:

• For string types, the column is set to the empty string.
• For numeric types, the column is set to 0.
• For date and time types, the column is set to the appropriate ``zero'' value for the type. See section 11.3 Date and Time Types.

These are the same values that result if you assign an empty string explicitly to a string, numeric, or date or time type explicitly in an INSERT or UPDATE statement.

TIMESTAMP columns are set to the current date and time only if there is a NULL value for the column (that is, \N), or (for the first TIMESTAMP column only) if the TIMESTAMP column is omitted from the field list when a field list is specified.

LOAD DATA INFILE regards all input as strings, so you can't use numeric values for ENUM or SET columns the way you can with INSERT statements. All ENUM and SET values must be specified as strings!

When the LOAD DATA INFILE statement finishes, it returns an information string in the following format:

Records: 1  Deleted: 0  Skipped: 0  Warnings: 0

If you are using the C API, you can get information about the statement by calling the mysql_info() function. See section 21.2.3.31 mysql_info().

Warnings occur under the same circumstances as when values are inserted via the INSERT statement (see section 13.1.4 INSERT Syntax), except that LOAD DATA INFILE also generates warnings when there are too few or too many fields in the input row. The warnings are not stored anywhere; the number of warnings can be used only as an indication of whether everything went well.

From MySQL 4.1.1 on, you can use SHOW WARNINGS to get a list of the first max_error_count warnings as information about what went wrong. See section 13.5.4.20 SHOW WARNINGS Syntax.

Before MySQL 4.1.1, only a warning count is available to indicate that something went wrong. If you get warnings and want to know exactly why you got them, one way to do this is to dump the table into another file using SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE and compare the file to your original input file.

13.1.6 REPLACE Syntax

REPLACE [LOW_PRIORITY | DELAYED]
    [INTO] tbl_name [(col_name,...)]
    VALUES ({expr | DEFAULT},...),(...),...

Or:

REPLACE [LOW_PRIORITY | DELAYED]
    [INTO] tbl_name
    SET col_name={expr | DEFAULT}, ...

Or:

REPLACE [LOW_PRIORITY | DELAYED]
    [INTO] tbl_name [(col_name,...)]
    SELECT ...

REPLACE works exactly like INSERT, except that if an old record in the table has the same value as a new record for a PRIMARY KEY or a UNIQUE index, the old record is deleted before the new record is inserted. See section 13.1.4 INSERT Syntax.

Note that unless the table has a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE index, using a REPLACE statement makes no sense. It becomes equivalent to INSERT, because there is no index to be used to determine whether a new row duplicates another.

Values for all columns are taken from the values specified in the REPLACE statement. Any missing columns are set to their default values, just as happens for INSERT. You can't refer to values from the old row and use them in the new row. It appeared that you could do this in some old MySQL versions, but that was a bug that has been corrected.

To be able to use REPLACE, you must have INSERT and DELETE privileges for the table.

The REPLACE statement returns a count to indicate the number of rows affected. This is the sum of the rows deleted and inserted. If the count is 1 for a single-row REPLACE, a row was inserted and no rows were deleted. If the count is greater than 1, one or more old rows were deleted before the new row was inserted. It is possible for a single row to replace more than one old row if the table contains multiple unique indexes and the new row duplicates values for different old rows in different unique indexes.

The affected-rows count makes it easy to determine whether REPLACE only added a row or whether it also replaced any rows: Check whether the count is 1 (added) or greater (replaced).

If you are using the C API, the affected-rows count can be obtained using the mysql_affected_rows() function.

Currently, you cannot replace into a table and select from the same table in a subquery.

Here follows in more detail the algorithm that is used (it is also used with LOAD DATA ... REPLACE):

1. Try to insert the new row into the table
2. While the insertion fails because a duplicate-key error occurs for a primary or unique key:
   1. Delete from the table the conflicting row that has the duplicate key value
   2. Try again to insert the new row into the table

13.1.7 SELECT Syntax

SELECT
    [ALL | DISTINCT | DISTINCTROW ]
      [HIGH_PRIORITY]
      [STRAIGHT_JOIN]
      [SQL_SMALL_RESULT] [SQL_BIG_RESULT] [SQL_BUFFER_RESULT]
      [SQL_CACHE | SQL_NO_CACHE] [SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS]
    select_expr, ...
    [INTO OUTFILE 'file_name' export_options
      | INTO DUMPFILE 'file_name']
    [FROM table_references
      [WHERE where_definition]
      [GROUP BY {col_name | expr | position}
        [ASC | DESC], ... [WITH ROLLUP]]
      [HAVING where_definition]
      [ORDER BY {col_name | expr | position}
        [ASC | DESC] , ...]
      [LIMIT {[offset,] row_count | row_count OFFSET offset}]
      [PROCEDURE procedure_name(argument_list)]
      [FOR UPDATE | LOCK IN SHARE MODE]]

SELECT is used to retrieve rows selected from one or more tables. Support for UNION statements and subqueries is available as of MySQL 4.0 and 4.1, respectively. See section 13.1.7.2 UNION Syntax and section 13.1.8 Subquery Syntax.

• Each select_expr indicates a column you want to retrieve.
• table_references indicates the table or tables from which to retrieve rows. Its syntax is described in section 13.1.7.1 JOIN Syntax.
• where_definition consists of the keyword WHERE followed by an expression that indicates the condition or conditions that rows must satisfy to be selected.

SELECT can also be used to retrieve rows computed without reference to any table. For example:

mysql> SELECT 1 + 1;
        -> 2

All clauses used must be given in exactly the order shown in the syntax description. For example, a HAVING clause must come after any GROUP BY clause and before any ORDER BY clause.

• A select_expr can be given an alias using AS alias_name. The alias is used as the expression's column name and can be used in GROUP BY, ORDER BY, or HAVING clauses. For example:

  mysql> SELECT CONCAT(last_name,', ',first_name) AS full_name
      -> FROM mytable ORDER BY full_name;
  

  The AS keyword is optional when aliasing a select_expr. The preceding example could have been written like this:

  mysql> SELECT CONCAT(last_name,', ',first_name) full_name
      -> FROM mytable ORDER BY full_name;
  

  Because the AS is optional, a subtle problem can occur if you forget the comma between two select_expr expressions: MySQL interprets the second as an alias name. For example, in the following statement, columnb is treated as an alias name:

  mysql> SELECT columna columnb FROM mytable;
  

• It is not allowable to use a column alias in a WHERE clause, because the column value might not yet be determined when the WHERE clause is executed. See section A.5.4 Problems with Column Aliases.
• The FROM table_references clause indicates the tables from which to retrieve rows. If you name more than one table, you are performing a join. For information on join syntax, see section 13.1.7.1 JOIN Syntax. For each table specified, you can optionally specify an alias.

  tbl_name [[AS] alias]
      [[USE INDEX (key_list)]
        | [IGNORE INDEX (key_list)]
        | [FORCE INDEX (key_list)]]
  

  The use of USE INDEX, IGNORE INDEX, FORCE INDEX to give the optimizer hints about how to choose indexes is described in section 13.1.7.1 JOIN Syntax. In MySQL 4.0.14, you can use SET max_seeks_for_key=value as an alternative way to force MySQL to prefer key scans instead of table scans.
• You can refer to a table within the current database as tbl_name (within the current database), or as db_name.tbl_name to explicitly specify a database. You can refer to a column as col_name, tbl_name.col_name, or db_name.tbl_name.col_name. You need not specify a tbl_name or db_name.tbl_name prefix for a column reference unless the reference would be ambiguous. See section 9.2 Database, Table, Index, Column, and Alias Names for examples of ambiguity that require the more explicit column reference forms.
• From MySQL 4.1.0 on, you are allowed to specify DUAL as a dummy table name in situations where no tables are referenced:

  mysql> SELECT 1 + 1 FROM DUAL;
          -> 2
  

  DUAL is purely a compatibility feature. Some other servers require this syntax.
• A table reference can be aliased using tbl_name AS alias_name or tbl_name alias_name:

  mysql> SELECT t1.name, t2.salary FROM employee AS t1, info AS t2
      ->     WHERE t1.name = t2.name;
  mysql> SELECT t1.name, t2.salary FROM employee t1, info t2
      ->     WHERE t1.name = t2.name;
  

• In the WHERE clause, you can use any of the functions that MySQL supports, except for aggregate (summary) functions. See section 12 Functions and Operators.
• Columns selected for output can be referred to in ORDER BY and GROUP BY clauses using column names, column aliases, or column positions. Column positions are integers and begin with 1:

  mysql> SELECT college, region, seed FROM tournament
      ->     ORDER BY region, seed;
  mysql> SELECT college, region AS r, seed AS s FROM tournament
      ->     ORDER BY r, s;
  mysql> SELECT college, region, seed FROM tournament
      ->     ORDER BY 2, 3;
  

  To sort in reverse order, add the DESC (descending) keyword to the name of the column in the ORDER BY clause that you are sorting by. The default is ascending order; this can be specified explicitly using the ASC keyword. Use of column positions is deprecated because the syntax has been removed from the SQL standard.
• If you use GROUP BY, output rows are sorted according to the GROUP BY columns as if you had an ORDER BY for the same columns. MySQL has extended the GROUP BY clause as of version 3.23.34 so that you can also specify ASC and DESC after columns named in the clause:

  SELECT a, COUNT(b) FROM test_table GROUP BY a DESC
  

• MySQL extends the use of GROUP BY to allow you to select fields that are not mentioned in the GROUP BY clause. If you are not getting the results you expect from your query, please read the GROUP BY description. See section 12.9 Functions and Modifiers for Use with GROUP BY Clauses.
• As of MySQL 4.1.1, GROUP BY allows a WITH ROLLUP modifier. See section 12.9.2 GROUP BY Modifiers.
• The HAVING clause can refer to any column or alias named in a select_expr. It is applied nearly last, just before items are sent to the client, with no optimization. (LIMIT is applied after HAVING.)
• Don't use HAVING for items that should be in the WHERE clause. For example, do not write this:

  mysql> SELECT col_name FROM tbl_name HAVING col_name > 0;
  

  Write this instead:

  mysql> SELECT col_name FROM tbl_name WHERE col_name > 0;
  

• The HAVING clause can refer to aggregate functions, which the WHERE clause cannot:

  mysql> SELECT user, MAX(salary) FROM users
      ->     GROUP BY user HAVING MAX(salary)>10;
  

  However, that does not work in older MySQL servers (before version 3.22.5). Instead, you can use a column alias in the select list and refer to the alias in the HAVING clause:

  mysql> SELECT user, MAX(salary) AS max_salary FROM users
      ->     GROUP BY user HAVING max_salary>10;
  

• The LIMIT clause can be used to constrain the number of rows returned by the SELECT statement. LIMIT takes one or two numeric arguments, which must be integer constants. With two arguments, the first argument specifies the offset of the first row to return, and the second specifies the maximum number of rows to return. The offset of the initial row is 0 (not 1):

  mysql> SELECT * FROM table LIMIT 5,10;  # Retrieve rows 6-15
  

  For compatibility with PostgreSQL, MySQL also supports the LIMIT row_count OFFSET offset syntax. To retrieve all rows from a certain offset up to the end of the result set, you can use some large number for the second parameter. This statement retrieves all rows from the 96th row to the last:

  mysql> SELECT * FROM table LIMIT 95,18446744073709551615;
  

  With one argument, the value specifies the number of rows to return from the beginning of the result set:

  mysql> SELECT * FROM table LIMIT 5;     # Retrieve first 5 rows
  

  In other words, LIMIT n is equivalent to LIMIT 0,n.
• The SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE 'file_name' form of SELECT writes the selected rows to a file. The file is created on the server host, so you must have the FILE privilege to use this syntax. The file cannot already exist, which among other things prevents files such as `/etc/passwd' and database tables from being destroyed. The SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE statement is intended primarily to let you very quickly dump a table on the server machine. If you want to create the resulting file on some client host other than the server host, you can't use SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE. In that case, you should instead use some command like mysql -e "SELECT ..." > file_name on the client host to generate the file. SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE is the complement of LOAD DATA INFILE; the syntax for the export_options part of the statement consists of the same FIELDS and LINES clauses that are used with the LOAD DATA INFILE statement. See section 13.1.5 LOAD DATA INFILE Syntax. FIELDS ESCAPED BY controls how to write special characters. If the FIELDS ESCAPED BY character is not empty, it is used to prefix the following characters on output:
  • The FIELDS ESCAPED BY character
  • The FIELDS [OPTIONALLY] ENCLOSED BY character
  • The first character of the FIELDS TERMINATED BY and LINES TERMINATED BY values
  • ASCII 0 (what is actually written following the escape character is ASCII `0', not a zero-valued byte)
  If the FIELDS ESCAPED BY character is empty, no characters are escaped and NULL is output as NULL, not \N. It is probably not a good idea to specify an empty escape character, particularly if field values in your data contain any of the characters in the list just given. The reason for the above is that you must escape any FIELDS TERMINATED BY, ENCLOSED BY, ESCAPED BY, or LINES TERMINATED BY characters to reliably be able to read the file back. ASCII NUL is escaped to make it easier to view with some pagers. The resulting file doesn't have to conform to SQL syntax, so nothing else need be escaped. Here is an example that produces a file in the comma-separated values format used by many programs:

  SELECT a,b,a+b INTO OUTFILE '/tmp/result.text'
  FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"'
  LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
  FROM test_table;
  

• If you use INTO DUMPFILE instead of INTO OUTFILE, MySQL writes only one row into the file, without any column or line termination and without performing any escape processing. This is useful if you want to store a BLOB value in a file.
• Note: Any file created by INTO OUTFILE or INTO DUMPFILE is writable by all users on the server host. The reason for this is that the MySQL server can't create a file that is owned by anyone other than the user it's running as (you should never run mysqld as root). The file thus must be world-writable so that you can manipulate its contents.
• A PROCEDURE clause names a procedure that should process the data in the result set. For an example, see section 24.3.1 Procedure Analyse.
• If you use FOR UPDATE on a storage engine that uses page or row locks, rows examined by the query are write-locked until the end of the current transaction. Using IN SHARE MODE sets a shared lock that prevents other transactions from updating or deleting the examined rows. See section 15.11.4 Locking Reads SELECT ... FOR UPDATE and SELECT ... LOCK IN SHARE MODE.

Following the SELECT keyword, you can give a number of options that affect the operation of the statement.

The ALL, DISTINCT, and DISTINCTROW options specify whether duplicate rows should be returned. If none of these options are given, the default is ALL (all matching rows are returned). DISTINCT and DISTINCTROW are synonyms and specify that duplicate rows in the result set should be removed.

HIGH_PRIORITY, STRAIGHT_JOIN, and options beginning with SQL_ are MySQL extensions to standard SQL.

• HIGH_PRIORITY will give the SELECT higher priority than a statement that updates a table. You should use this only for queries that are very fast and must be done at once. A SELECT HIGH_PRIORITY query that is issued while the table is locked for reading will run even if there is already an update statement waiting for the table to be free. HIGH_PRIORITY cannot be used with SELECT statements that are part of a UNION.
• STRAIGHT_JOIN forces the optimizer to join the tables in the order in which they are listed in the FROM clause. You can use this to speed up a query if the optimizer joins the tables in non-optimal order. See section 7.2.1 EXPLAIN Syntax (Get Information About a SELECT). STRAIGHT_JOIN also can be used in the table_references list. See section 13.1.7.1 JOIN Syntax.
• SQL_BIG_RESULT can be used with GROUP BY or DISTINCT to tell the optimizer that the result set will have many rows. In this case, MySQL will directly use disk-based temporary tables if needed. MySQL will also, in this case, prefer sorting to using a temporary table with a key on the GROUP BY elements.
• SQL_BUFFER_RESULT forces the result to be put into a temporary table. This helps MySQL free the table locks early and helps in cases where it takes a long time to send the result set to the client.
• SQL_SMALL_RESULT can be used with GROUP BY or DISTINCT to tell the optimizer that the result set will be small. In this case, MySQL uses fast temporary tables to store the resulting table instead of using sorting. In MySQL 3.23 and up, this shouldn't normally be needed.
• SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS (available in MySQL 4.0.0 and up) tells MySQL to calculate how many rows there would be in the result set, disregarding any LIMIT clause. The number of rows can then be retrieved with SELECT FOUND_ROWS(). See section 12.8.3 Information Functions. Before MySQL 4.1.0, this option does not work with LIMIT 0, which is optimized to return instantly (resulting in a row count of 0). See section 7.2.12 How MySQL Optimizes LIMIT.
• SQL_CACHE tells MySQL to store the query result in the query cache if you are using a query_cache_type value of 2 or DEMAND. For a query that uses UNION or subqueries, this option takes effect to be used in any SELECT of the query. See section 5.11 The MySQL Query Cache.
• SQL_NO_CACHE tells MySQL not to store the query result in the query cache. See section 5.11 The MySQL Query Cache. For a query that uses UNION or subqueries, this option takes effect to be used in any SELECT of the query.

13.1.7.1 JOIN Syntax

MySQL supports the following JOIN syntaxes for the table_references part of SELECT statements and multiple-table DELETE and UPDATE statements:

table_reference, table_reference
table_reference [INNER | CROSS] JOIN table_reference [join_condition]
table_reference STRAIGHT_JOIN table_reference
table_reference LEFT [OUTER] JOIN table_reference [join_condition]
table_reference NATURAL [LEFT [OUTER]] JOIN table_reference
{ OJ table_reference LEFT OUTER JOIN table_reference
    ON conditional_expr }
table_reference RIGHT [OUTER] JOIN table_reference [join_condition]
table_reference NATURAL [RIGHT [OUTER]] JOIN table_reference

table_reference is defined as:

tbl_name [[AS] alias]
    [[USE INDEX (key_list)]
      | [IGNORE INDEX (key_list)]
      | [FORCE INDEX (key_list)]]

join_condition is defined as:

ON conditional_expr | USING (column_list)

You should generally not have any conditions in the ON part that are used to restrict which rows you want in the result set, but rather specify these conditions in the WHERE clause. There are exceptions to this rule.

Note that INNER JOIN syntax allows a join_condition only from MySQL 3.23.17 on. The same is true for JOIN and CROSS JOIN only as of MySQL 4.0.11.

The { OJ ... LEFT OUTER JOIN ...} syntax shown in the preceding list exists only for compatibility with ODBC.

• A table reference can be aliased using tbl_name AS alias_name or tbl_name alias_name:

  mysql> SELECT t1.name, t2.salary FROM employee AS t1, info AS t2
      ->        WHERE t1.name = t2.name;
  mysql> SELECT t1.name, t2.salary FROM employee t1, info t2
      ->        WHERE t1.name = t2.name;
  

• The ON conditional is any conditional expression of the form that can be used in a WHERE clause.
• If there is no matching record for the right table in the ON or USING part in a LEFT JOIN, a row with all columns set to NULL is used for the right table. You can use this fact to find records in a table that have no counterpart in another table:

  mysql> SELECT table1.* FROM table1
      ->        LEFT JOIN table2 ON table1.id=table2.id
      ->        WHERE table2.id IS NULL;
  

  This example finds all rows in table1 with an id value that is not present in table2 (that is, all rows in table1 with no corresponding row in table2). This assumes that table2.id is declared NOT NULL. See section 7.2.9 How MySQL Optimizes LEFT JOIN and RIGHT JOIN.
• The USING (column_list) clause names a list of columns that must exist in both tables. The following two clauses are semantically identical:

  a LEFT JOIN b USING (c1,c2,c3)
  a LEFT JOIN b ON a.c1=b.c1 AND a.c2=b.c2 AND a.c3=b.c3
  

• The NATURAL [LEFT] JOIN of two tables is defined to be semantically equivalent to an INNER JOIN or a LEFT JOIN with a USING clause that names all columns that exist in both tables.
• INNER JOIN and , (comma) are semantically equivalent in the absence of a join condition: both will produce a Cartesian product between the specified tables (that is, each and every row in the first table will be joined onto all rows in the second table).
• RIGHT JOIN works analogously to LEFT JOIN. To keep code portable across databases, it's recommended to use LEFT JOIN instead of RIGHT JOIN.
• STRAIGHT_JOIN is identical to JOIN, except that the left table is always read before the right table. This can be used for those (few) cases for which the join optimizer puts the tables in the wrong order.

As of MySQL 3.23.12, you can give hints about which index MySQL should use when retrieving information from a table. By specifying USE INDEX (key_list), you can tell MySQL to use only one of the possible indexes to find rows in the table. The alternative syntax IGNORE INDEX (key_list) can be used to tell MySQL to not use some particular index. These hints are useful if EXPLAIN shows that MySQL is using the wrong index from the list of possible indexes.

From MySQL 4.0.9 on, you can also use FORCE INDEX. This acts likes USE INDEX (key_list) but with the addition that a table scan is assumed to be very expensive. In other words, a table scan will only be used if there is no way to use one of the given indexes to find rows in the table.

USE KEY, IGNORE KEY, and FORCE KEY are synonyms for USE INDEX, IGNORE INDEX, and FORCE INDEX.

Note: USE INDEX, IGNORE INDEX, and FORCE INDEX only affect which indexes are used when MySQL decides how to find rows in the table and how to do the join. They do not affect whether an index will be used when resolving an ORDER BY or GROUP BY.

Some join examples:

mysql> SELECT * FROM table1,table2 WHERE table1.id=table2.id;
mysql> SELECT * FROM table1 LEFT JOIN table2 ON table1.id=table2.id;
mysql> SELECT * FROM table1 LEFT JOIN table2 USING (id);
mysql> SELECT * FROM table1 LEFT JOIN table2 ON table1.id=table2.id
    ->          LEFT JOIN table3 ON table2.id=table3.id;
mysql> SELECT * FROM table1 USE INDEX (key1,key2)
    ->          WHERE key1=1 AND key2=2 AND key3=3;
mysql> SELECT * FROM table1 IGNORE INDEX (key3)
    ->          WHERE key1=1 AND key2=2 AND key3=3;

See section 7.2.9 How MySQL Optimizes LEFT JOIN and RIGHT JOIN.

13.1.7.2 UNION Syntax

SELECT ...
UNION [ALL | DISTINCT]
SELECT ...
  [UNION [ALL | DISTINCT]
   SELECT ...]

UNION is used to combine the result from many SELECT statements into one result set. UNION is available from MySQL 4.0.0 on.

Selected columns listed in corresponding positions of each SELECT statement should have the same type. (For example, the first column selected by the first statement should have the same type as the first column selected by the other statements.) The column names used in the first SELECT statement are used as the column names for the results returned.

The SELECT statements are normal select statements, but with the following restrictions:

• Only the last SELECT statement can have INTO OUTFILE.
• HIGH_PRIORITY cannot be used with SELECT statements that are part of a UNION. If you specify it for the first SELECT, it has no effect. If you specify it for any subsequent SELECT statements, a syntax error results.

If you don't use the keyword ALL for the UNION, all returned rows will be unique, as if you had done a DISTINCT for the total result set. If you specify ALL, you will get all matching rows from all the used SELECT statements.

The DISTINCT keyword is an optional word (introduced in MySQL 4.0.17). It does nothing, but is allowed in the syntax as required by the SQL standard.

Before MySQL 4.1.2, you cannot mix UNION ALL and UNION DISTINCT in the same query. If you use ALL for one UNION, it is used for all of them. As of MySQL 4.1.2, mixed UNION types are treated such that a DISTINCT union overrides any ALL union to its left. A DISTINCT union can be produced explicitly by using UNION DISTINCT or implicitly by using UNION with no following DISTINCT or ALL keyword.

If you want to use an ORDER BY or LIMIT clause to sort or limit the entire UNION result, parenthesize the individual SELECT statements and place the ORDER BY or LIMIT after the last one. The following example uses both clauses:

(SELECT a FROM tbl_name WHERE a=10 AND B=1)
UNION
(SELECT a FROM tbl_name WHERE a=11 AND B=2)
ORDER BY a LIMIT 10;

This kind of ORDER BY cannot use column references that include a table name (that is, names in tbl_name.col_name format). Instead, provide a column alias in the first SELECT statement and refer to the alias in the ORDER BY, or else refer to the column in the ORDER BY using its column position. (An alias is preferable because use of column positions is deprecated.)

To apply ORDER BY or LIMIT to an individual SELECT, place the clause inside the parentheses that enclose the SELECT:

(SELECT a FROM tbl_name WHERE a=10 AND B=1 ORDER BY a LIMIT 10)
UNION
(SELECT a FROM tbl_name WHERE a=11 AND B=2 ORDER BY a LIMIT 10);

The types and lengths of the columns in the result set of a UNION take into account the values retrieved by all the SELECT statements. Before MySQL 4.1.1, a limitation of UNION is that only the values from the first SELECT are used to determine result column types and lengths. This could result in value truncation if, for example, the first SELECT retrieves shorter values than the second SELECT:

mysql> SELECT REPEAT('a',1) UNION SELECT REPEAT('b',10);
+---------------+
| REPEAT('a',1) |
+---------------+
| a             |
| b             |
+---------------+

That limitation has been removed as of MySQL 4.1.1:

mysql> SELECT REPEAT('a',1) UNION SELECT REPEAT('b',10);
+---------------+
| REPEAT('a',1) |
+---------------+
| a             |
| bbbbbbbbbb    |
+---------------+

13.1.8 Subquery Syntax

A subquery is a SELECT statement inside another statement.

Starting with MySQL 4.1, all subquery forms and operations that the SQL standard requires are supported, as well as a few features that are MySQL-specific.

With MySQL versions prior to 4.1, it was necessary to work around or avoid the use of subqueries. In many cases, subqueries can successfully be rewritten using joins and other methods. See section 13.1.8.11 Rewriting Subqueries as Joins for Earlier MySQL Versions.

Here is an example of a subquery:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE column1 = (SELECT column1 FROM t2);

In this example, SELECT * FROM t1 ... is the outer query (or outer statement), and (SELECT column1 FROM t2) is the subquery. We say that the subquery is nested in the outer query, and in fact it's possible to nest subqueries within other subqueries, to a great depth. A subquery must always appear within parentheses.

The main advantages of subqueries are:

• They allow queries that are structured so that it's possible to isolate each part of a statement.
• They provide alternative ways to perform operations that would otherwise require complex joins and unions.
• They are, in many people's opinion, readable. Indeed, it was the innovation of subqueries that gave people the original idea of calling the early SQL ``Structured Query Language.''

Here is an example statement that shows the major points about subquery syntax as specified by the SQL standard and supported in MySQL:

DELETE FROM t1
WHERE s11 > ANY
 (SELECT COUNT(*) /* no hint */ FROM t2
 WHERE NOT EXISTS
  (SELECT * FROM t3
   WHERE ROW(5*t2.s1,77)=
    (SELECT 50,11*s1 FROM t4 UNION SELECT 50,77 FROM
     (SELECT * FROM t5) AS t5)));

A subquery can return a scalar (a single value), a single row, a single column, or a table (one or more rows of one or more columns). These are called scalar, column, row, and table subqueries. Subqueries that return a particular kind of result often can be used only in certain contexts, as described in the following sections.

There are few restrictions on the type of statements in which subqueries can be used:

• A subquery's outer statement can be any one of: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, SET, or DO.
• A subquery can contain any of the keywords or clauses that an ordinary SELECT can contain: DISTINCT, GROUP BY, ORDER BY, LIMIT, joins, index hints, UNION constructs, comments, functions, and so on.

One restriction is that currently you cannot modify a table and select from the same table in a subquery. This applies to statements such as DELETE, INSERT, REPLACE, and UPDATE.

13.1.8.1 The Subquery as Scalar Operand

In its simplest form, a subquery is a scalar subquery that returns a single value. A scalar subquery is a simple operand, and you can use it wherever a single column value or literal is legal, and you can expect it to have those characteristics that all operands have: a data type, a length, an indication whether it can be NULL, and so on. For example:

CREATE TABLE t1 (s1 INT, s2 CHAR(5) NOT NULL);
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(100, 'abcde');
SELECT (SELECT s2 FROM t1);

The subquery in this SELECT returns a single value ('abcde') that has a data type of CHAR, a length of 5, a character set and collation equal to the defaults in effect at CREATE TABLE time, and an indication that the value in the column can be NULL. In fact, almost all subqueries can be NULL. If the table used in the example were empty, the value of the subquery would be NULL.

When you see examples in the following sections that contain the rather spartan construct (SELECT column1 FROM t1), imagine that your own code will contain much more diverse and complex constructions.

For example, suppose that we make two tables:

CREATE TABLE t1 (s1 INT);
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1);
CREATE TABLE t2 (s1 INT);
INSERT INTO t2 VALUES (2);

Then perform a SELECT:

SELECT (SELECT s1 FROM t2) FROM t1;

The result will be 2 because there is a row in t2 containing a column s1 that has a value of 2.

A scalar subquery can be part of an expression. Don't forget the parentheses, even if the subquery is an operand that provides an argument for a function. For example:

SELECT UPPER((SELECT s1 FROM t1)) FROM t2;

13.1.8.2 Comparisons Using Subqueries

The most common use of a subquery is in the form:

non_subquery_operand comparison_operator (subquery)

Where comparison_operator is one of these operators:

=  >  <  >=  <=  <>

For example:

... 'a' = (SELECT column1 FROM t1)

At one time the only legal place for a subquery was on the right side of a comparison, and you might still find some old DBMSs that insist on this.

Here is an example of a common-form subquery comparison that you cannot do with a join. It finds all the values in table t1 that are equal to a maximum value in table t2:

SELECT column1 FROM t1
       WHERE column1 = (SELECT MAX(column2) FROM t2);

Here is another example, which again is impossible with a join because it involves aggregating for one of the tables. It finds all rows in table t1 containing a value that occurs twice in a given column:

SELECT * FROM t1 AS t
    WHERE 2 = (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t1 WHERE t1.id = t.id);

For a comparison performed with one of these comparison operators, the subquery must return a scalar, with the exception that = can be used with row subqueries. See section 13.1.8.5 Row Subqueries.

13.1.8.3 Subqueries with ANY, IN, and SOME

Syntax:

operand comparison_operator ANY (subquery)
operand IN (subquery)
operand comparison_operator SOME (subquery)

The ANY keyword, which must follow a comparison operator, means ``return TRUE if the comparison is TRUE for ANY of the values in the column that the subquery returns.'' For example:

SELECT s1 FROM t1 WHERE s1 > ANY (SELECT s1 FROM t2);

Suppose that there is a row in table t1 containing (10). The expression is TRUE if table t2 contains (21,14,7) because there is a value 7 in t2 that is less than 10. The expression is FALSE if table t2 contains (20,10), or if table t2 is empty. The expression is UNKNOWN if table t2 contains (NULL,NULL,NULL).

The word IN is an alias for = ANY. Thus these two statements are the same:

SELECT s1 FROM t1 WHERE s1 = ANY (SELECT s1 FROM t2);
SELECT s1 FROM t1 WHERE s1 IN    (SELECT s1 FROM t2);

However, NOT IN is not an alias for <> ANY, but for <> ALL. See section 13.1.8.4 Subqueries with ALL.

The word SOME is an alias for ANY. Thus these two statements are the same:

SELECT s1 FROM t1 WHERE s1 <> ANY  (SELECT s1 FROM t2);
SELECT s1 FROM t1 WHERE s1 <> SOME (SELECT s1 FROM t2);

Use of the word SOME is rare, but this example shows why it might be useful. To most people's ears, the English phrase ``a is not equal to any b'' means ``there is no b which is equal to a,'' but that isn't what is meant by the SQL syntax. Using <> SOME instead helps ensure that everyone understands the true meaning of the query.

13.1.8.4 Subqueries with ALL

Syntax:

operand comparison_operator ALL (subquery)

The word ALL, which must follow a comparison operator, means ``return TRUE if the comparison is TRUE for ALL of the values in the column that the subquery returns.'' For example:

SELECT s1 FROM t1 WHERE s1 > ALL (SELECT s1 FROM t2);

Suppose that there is a row in table t1 containing (10). The expression is TRUE if table t2 contains (-5,0,+5) because 10 is greater than all three values in t2. The expression is FALSE if table t2 contains (12,6,NULL,-100) because there is a single value 12 in table t2 that is greater than 10. The expression is UNKNOWN if table t2 contains (0,NULL,1).

Finally, if table t2 is empty, the result is TRUE. You might think the result should be UNKNOWN, but sorry, it's TRUE. So, rather oddly, the following statement is TRUE when table t2 is empty:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE 1 > ALL (SELECT s1 FROM t2);

But this statement is UNKNOWN when table t2 is empty:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE 1 > (SELECT s1 FROM t2);

In addition, the following statement is UNKNOWN when table t2 is empty:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE 1 > ALL (SELECT MAX(s1) FROM t2);

In general, tables with NULL values and empty tables are edge cases. When writing subquery code, always consider whether you have taken those two possibilities into account.

NOT IN is an alias for <> ALL. Thus these two statements are the same:

SELECT s1 FROM t1 WHERE s1 <> ALL (SELECT s1 FROM t2);
SELECT s1 FROM t1 WHERE s1 NOT IN (SELECT s1 FROM t2);

13.1.8.5 Row Subqueries

The discussion to this point has been of scalar or column subqueries, that is, subqueries that return a single value or a column of values. A row subquery is a subquery variant that returns a single row and can thus return more than one column value. Here are two examples:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE (1,2) = (SELECT column1, column2 FROM t2);
SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE ROW(1,2) = (SELECT column1, column2 FROM t2);

The queries here are both TRUE if table t2 has a row where column1 = 1 and column2 = 2.

The expressions (1,2) and ROW(1,2) are sometimes called row constructors. The two are equivalent. They are legal in other contexts, too. For example, the following two statements are semantically equivalent (although currently only the second one can be optimized):

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE (column1,column2) = (1,1);
SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE column1 = 1 AND column2 = 1;

The normal use of row constructors, though, is for comparisons with subqueries that return two or more columns. For example, the following query answers the request, ``find all rows in table t1 that also exist in table t2'':

SELECT column1,column2,column3
       FROM t1
       WHERE (column1,column2,column3) IN
             (SELECT column1,column2,column3 FROM t2);

13.1.8.6 EXISTS and NOT EXISTS

If a subquery returns any rows at all, then EXISTS subquery is TRUE, and NOT EXISTS subquery is FALSE. For example:

SELECT column1 FROM t1 WHERE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM t2);

Traditionally, an EXISTS subquery starts with SELECT *, but it could begin with SELECT 5 or SELECT column1 or anything at all. MySQL ignores the SELECT list in such a subquery, so it doesn't matter.

For the preceding example, if t2 contains any rows, even rows with nothing but NULL values, then the EXISTS condition is TRUE. This is actually an unlikely example, since almost always a [NOT] EXISTS subquery will contain correlations. Here are some more realistic examples:

• What kind of store is present in one or more cities?

  SELECT DISTINCT store_type FROM Stores
    WHERE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM Cities_Stores
                  WHERE Cities_Stores.store_type = Stores.store_type);
  

• What kind of store is present in no cities?

  SELECT DISTINCT store_type FROM Stores
    WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM Cities_Stores
                      WHERE Cities_Stores.store_type = Stores.store_type);
  

• What kind of store is present in all cities?

  SELECT DISTINCT store_type FROM Stores S1
    WHERE NOT EXISTS (
      SELECT * FROM Cities WHERE NOT EXISTS (
        SELECT * FROM Cities_Stores
         WHERE Cities_Stores.city = Cities.city
         AND Cities_Stores.store_type = Stores.store_type));
  

The last example is a double-nested NOT EXISTS query. That is, it has a NOT EXISTS clause within a NOT EXISTS clause. Formally, it answers the question ``does a city exist with a store that is not in Stores?'' But it's easier to say that a nested NOT EXISTS answers the question ``is x TRUE for all y?''

13.1.8.7 Correlated Subqueries

A correlated subquery is a subquery that contains a reference to a table that also appears in the outer query. For example:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE column1 = ANY
       (SELECT column1 FROM t2 WHERE t2.column2 = t1.column2);

Notice that the subquery contains a reference to a column of t1, even though the subquery's FROM clause doesn't mention a table t1. So, MySQL looks outside the subquery, and finds t1 in the outer query.

Suppose that table t1 contains a row where column1 = 5 and column2 = 6; meanwhile, table t2 contains a row where column1 = 5 and column2 = 7. The simple expression ... WHERE column1 = ANY (SELECT column1 FROM t2) would be TRUE, but in this example, the WHERE clause within the subquery is FALSE (because (5,6) is not equal to (5,7)), so the subquery as a whole is FALSE.

Scoping rule: MySQL evaluates from inside to outside. For example:

SELECT column1 FROM t1 AS x
  WHERE x.column1 = (SELECT column1 FROM t2 AS x
    WHERE x.column1 = (SELECT column1 FROM t3
      WHERE x.column2 = t3.column1));

In this statement, x.column2 must be a column in table t2 because SELECT column1 FROM t2 AS x ... renames t2. It is not a column in table t1 because SELECT column1 FROM t1 ... is an outer query that is farther out.

For subqueries in HAVING or ORDER BY clauses, MySQL also looks for column names in the outer select list.

For certain cases, a correlated subquery is optimized. For example:

val IN (SELECT key_val FROM tbl_name WHERE correlated_condition)

Otherwise, they are inefficient and likely to be slow. Rewriting the query as a join might improve performance.

13.1.8.8 Subqueries in the FROM clause

Subqueries are legal in a SELECT statement's FROM clause. The syntax that you'll actually see is:

SELECT ... FROM (subquery) AS name ...

The AS name clause is mandatory, because every table in a FROM clause must have a name. Any columns in the subquery select list must have unique names. You can find this syntax described elsewhere in this manual, where the term used is ``derived tables.''

For illustration, assume that you have this table:

CREATE TABLE t1 (s1 INT, s2 CHAR(5), s3 FLOAT);

Here's how to use a subquery in the FROM clause, using the example table:

INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1,'1',1.0);
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (2,'2',2.0);
SELECT sb1,sb2,sb3
       FROM (SELECT s1 AS sb1, s2 AS sb2, s3*2 AS sb3 FROM t1) AS sb
       WHERE sb1 > 1;

Result: 2, '2', 4.0.

Here's another example: Suppose that you want to know the average of a set of sums for a grouped table. This won't work:

SELECT AVG(SUM(column1)) FROM t1 GROUP BY column1;

But this query will provide the desired information:

SELECT AVG(sum_column1)
       FROM (SELECT SUM(column1) AS sum_column1
             FROM t1 GROUP BY column1) AS t1;

Notice that the column name used within the subquery (sum_column1) is recognized in the outer query.

Subqueries in the FROM clause can return a scalar, column, row, or table. At the moment, subqueries in the FROM clause cannot be correlated subqueries.

Subqueries in the FROM clause will be executed even for the EXPLAIN statement (that is, derived temporary tables will be built). This occurs because upper level queries need information about all tables during optimization phase.

13.1.8.9 Subquery Errors

There are some new error returns that apply only to subqueries. This section groups them together because reviewing them will help remind you of some points.

• Unsupported subquery syntax:

  ERROR 1235 (ER_NOT_SUPPORTED_YET)
  SQLSTATE = 42000
  Message = "This version of MySQL doesn't yet support
  'LIMIT & IN/ALL/ANY/SOME subquery'"
  

  This means that statements of the following form will not work, although this happens only in some early versions, such as MySQL 4.1.1:

  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE s1 IN (SELECT s2 FROM t2 ORDER BY s1 LIMIT 1)
  

• Incorrect number of columns from subquery:

  ERROR 1241 (ER_OPERAND_COL)
  SQLSTATE = 21000
  Message = "Operand should contain 1 column(s)"
  

  This error will occur in cases like this:

  SELECT (SELECT column1, column2 FROM t2) FROM t1;
  

  It's okay to use a subquery that returns multiple columns, if the purpose is comparison. See section 13.1.8.5 Row Subqueries. But in other contexts, the subquery must be a scalar operand.
• Incorrect number of rows from subquery:

  ERROR 1242 (ER_SUBSELECT_NO_1_ROW)
  SQLSTATE = 21000
  Message = "Subquery returns more than 1 row"
  

  This error will occur for statements such as the following one, but only when there is more than one row in t2:

  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE column1 = (SELECT column1 FROM t2);
  

  That means this error might occur in code that had been working for years, because somebody happened to make a change that affected the number of rows that the subquery can return. Remember that if the object is to find any number of rows, not just one, then the correct statement would look like this:

  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE column1 = ANY (SELECT column1 FROM t2);
  

• Incorrectly used table in subquery:

  Error 1093 (ER_UPDATE_TABLE_USED)
  SQLSTATE = HY000
  Message = "You can't specify target table 'x'
  for update in FROM clause"
  

  This error will occur in cases like this:

  UPDATE t1 SET column2 = (SELECT MAX(column1) FROM t1);
  

  It's okay to use a subquery for assignment within an UPDATE statement, since subqueries are legal in UPDATE and DELETE statements as well as in SELECT statements. However, you cannot use the same table, in this case table t1, for both the subquery's FROM clause and the update target.

For transactional storage engines, a failure of a subquery causes the entire statement to fail. For non-transactional storage engines, data modifications made before the error was encountered are preserved.

13.1.8.10 Optimizing Subqueries

Development is ongoing, so no optimization tip is reliable for the long term. Some interesting tricks that you might want to play with are:

• Use subquery clauses that affect the number or order of the rows in the subquery. For example:

  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE t1.column1 IN
    (SELECT column1 FROM t2 ORDER BY column1);
  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE t1.column1 IN
    (SELECT DISTINCT column1 FROM t2);
  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE EXISTS
    (SELECT * FROM t2 LIMIT 1);
  

• Replace a join with a subquery. For example, use this query:

  SELECT DISTINCT column1 FROM t1 WHERE t1.column1 IN (
    SELECT column1 FROM t2);
  

  Instead of this query:

  SELECT DISTINCT t1.column1 FROM t1, t2
    WHERE t1.column1 = t2.column1;
  

• Move clauses from outside to inside the subquery. For example, use this query:

  SELECT * FROM t1
    WHERE s1 IN (SELECT s1 FROM t1 UNION ALL SELECT s1 FROM t2);
  

  Instead of this query:

  SELECT * FROM t1
    WHERE s1 IN (SELECT s1 FROM t1) OR s1 IN (SELECT s1 FROM t2);
  

  For another example, use this query:

  SELECT (SELECT column1 + 5 FROM t1) FROM t2;
  

  Instead of this query:

  SELECT (SELECT column1 FROM t1) + 5 FROM t2;
  

• Use a row subquery instead of a correlated subquery. For example, use this query:

  SELECT * FROM t1
    WHERE (column1,column2) IN (SELECT column1,column2 FROM t2);
  

  Instead of this query:

  SELECT * FROM t1
    WHERE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM t2 WHERE t2.column1=t1.column1
    AND t2.column2=t1.column2);
  

• Use NOT (a = ANY (...)) rather than a <> ALL (...).
• Use x = ANY (table containing (1,2)) rather than x=1 OR x=2.
• Use = ANY rather than EXISTS.

These tricks might cause programs to go faster or slower. Using MySQL facilities like the BENCHMARK() function, you can get an idea about what helps in your own situation. Don't worry too much about transforming to joins except for compatibility with older versions of MySQL before 4.1 that do not support subqueries.

Some optimizations that MySQL itself makes are:

• MySQL executes non-correlated subqueries only once. Use EXPLAIN to make sure that a given subquery really is non-correlated.
• MySQL rewrites IN/ALL/ANY/SOME subqueries in an attempt to take advantage of the possibility that the select-list columns in the subquery are indexed.
• MySQL replaces subqueries of the following form with an index-lookup function, which EXPLAIN will describe as a special join type:

  ... IN (SELECT indexed_column FROM single_table ...)
  

• MySQL enhances expressions of the following form with an expression involving MIN() or MAX(), unless NULL values or empty sets are involved:

  value {ALL|ANY|SOME} {> | < | >= | <=} (non-correlated subquery)
  

  For example, this WHERE clause:

  WHERE 5 > ALL (SELECT x FROM t)
  

  might be treated by the optimizer like this:

  WHERE 5 > (SELECT MAX(x) FROM t)
  

There is a chapter titled ``How MySQL Transforms Subqueries'' in the MySQL Internals Manual. You can obtain this document by downloading the MySQL source package and looking for a file named `internals.texi' in the `Docs' directory.

13.1.8.11 Rewriting Subqueries as Joins for Earlier MySQL Versions

Before MySQL 4.1, only nested queries of the form INSERT ... SELECT ... and REPLACE ... SELECT ... are supported. The IN() construct can be used in other contexts to test membership in a set of values.

It is often possible to rewrite a query without a subquery:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE id IN (SELECT id FROM t2);

This can be rewritten as:

SELECT DISTINCT t1.* FROM t1, t2 WHERE t1.id=t2.id;

The queries:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT id FROM t2);
SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT id FROM t2 WHERE t1.id=t2.id);

Can be rewritten as:

SELECT table1.* FROM table1 LEFT JOIN table2 ON table1.id=table2.id
                                       WHERE table2.id IS NULL;

A LEFT [OUTER] JOIN can be faster than an equivalent subquery because the server might be able to optimize it better--a fact that is not specific to MySQL Server alone. Prior to SQL-92, outer joins did not exist, so subqueries were the only way to do certain things in those bygone days. Today, MySQL Server and many other modern database systems offer a whole range of outer join types.

For more complicated subqueries, you can often create temporary tables to hold the subquery. In some cases, however, this option will not work. The most frequently encountered of these cases arises with DELETE statements, for which standard SQL does not support joins (except in subqueries). For this situation, there are three options available:

• The first option is to upgrade to MySQL 4.1, which does support subqueries in DELETE statements.
• The second option is to use a procedural programming language (such as Perl or PHP) to submit a SELECT query to obtain the primary keys for the records to be deleted, and then use these values to construct the DELETE statement (DELETE FROM ... WHERE key_col IN (key1, key2, ...)).
• The third option is to use interactive SQL to construct a set of DELETE statements automatically, using the MySQL extension CONCAT() (in lieu of the standard || operator). For example:

  SELECT
    CONCAT('DELETE FROM tab1 WHERE pkid = ', "'", tab1.pkid, "'", ';')
    FROM tab1, tab2
   WHERE tab1.col1 = tab2.col2;
  

  You can place this query in a script file, use the file as input to one instance of the mysql program, and use the program output as input to a second instance of mysql:

  shell> mysql --skip-column-names mydb < myscript.sql | mysql mydb
  

MySQL Server 4.0 supports multiple-table DELETE statements that can be used to efficiently delete rows based on information from one table or even from many tables at the same time. Multiple-table UPDATE statements are also supported as of MySQL 4.0.

13.1.9 TRUNCATE Syntax

TRUNCATE TABLE tbl_name

TRUNCATE TABLE empties a table completely. Logically, this is equivalent to a DELETE statement that deletes all rows, but there are practical differences under some circumstances.

For InnoDB, TRUNCATE TABLE is mapped to DELETE, so there is no difference. For other storage engines, TRUNCATE TABLE differs from DELETE FROM ... in the following ways from MySQL 4.0 and up:

• Truncate operations drop and re-create the table, which is much faster than deleting rows one by one.
• Truncate operations are not transaction-safe; you will get an error if you have an active transaction or an active table lock.
• The number of deleted rows is not returned.
• As long as the table definition file `tbl_name.frm' is valid, the table can be re-created as an empty table with TRUNCATE TABLE, even if the data or index files have become corrupted.
• The table handler does not remember the last used AUTO_INCREMENT value, but starts counting from the beginning. This is true even for MyISAM, which normally does not reuse sequence values.

In MySQL 3.23, TRUNCATE TABLE is mapped to COMMIT; DELETE FROM tbl_name, so it behaves like DELETE. See section 13.1.1 DELETE Syntax.

TRUNCATE TABLE is an Oracle SQL extension. This statement was added in MySQL 3.23.28, although from 3.23.28 to 3.23.32, the keyword TABLE must be omitted.

13.1.10 UPDATE Syntax

Single-table syntax:

UPDATE [LOW_PRIORITY] [IGNORE] tbl_name
    SET col_name1=expr1 [, col_name2=expr2 ...]
    [WHERE where_definition]
    [ORDER BY ...]
    [LIMIT row_count]

Multiple-table syntax:

UPDATE [LOW_PRIORITY] [IGNORE] tbl_name [, tbl_name ...]
    SET col_name1=expr1 [, col_name2=expr2 ...]
    [WHERE where_definition]

The UPDATE statement updates columns in existing table rows with new values. The SET clause indicates which columns to modify and the values they should be given. The WHERE clause, if given, specifies which rows should be updated. Otherwise, all rows are updated. If the ORDER BY clause is specified, the rows will be updated in the order that is specified. The LIMIT clause places a limit on the number of rows that can be updated.

The UPDATE statement supports the following modifiers:

• If you specify the LOW_PRIORITY keyword, execution of the UPDATE is delayed until no other clients are reading from the table.
• If you specify the IGNORE keyword, the update statement will not abort even if errors occur during the update. Rows for which duplicate-key conflicts occur are not updated. Rows for which columns are updated to values that would cause data conversion errors are updated to the closet valid values instead.

If you access a column from tbl_name in an expression, UPDATE uses the current value of the column. For example, the following statement sets the age column to one more than its current value:

mysql> UPDATE persondata SET age=age+1;

UPDATE assignments are evaluated from left to right. For example, the following statement doubles the age column, then increments it:

mysql> UPDATE persondata SET age=age*2, age=age+1;

If you set a column to the value it currently has, MySQL notices this and doesn't update it.

If you update a column that has been declared NOT NULL by setting to NULL, the column is set to the default value appropriate for the column type and the warning count is incremented. The default value is 0 for numeric types, the empty string ('') for string types, and the ``zero'' value for date and time types.

UPDATE returns the number of rows that were actually changed. In MySQL 3.22 or later, the mysql_info() C API function returns the number of rows that were matched and updated and the number of warnings that occurred during the UPDATE.

Starting from MySQL 3.23, you can use LIMIT row_count to restrict the scope of the UPDATE. A LIMIT clause works as follows:

• Before MySQL 4.0.13, LIMIT is a rows-affected restriction. The statement stops as soon as it has changed row_count rows that satisfy the WHERE clause.
• From 4.0.13 on, LIMIT is a rows-matched restriction. The statement stops as soon as it has found row_count rows that satisfy the WHERE clause, whether or not they actually were changed.

If an UPDATE statement includes an ORDER BY clause, the rows are updated in the order specified by the clause. ORDER BY can be used from MySQL 4.0.0.

Starting with MySQL 4.0.4, you can also perform UPDATE operations that cover multiple tables:

UPDATE items,month SET items.price=month.price
WHERE items.id=month.id;

The example shows an inner join using the comma operator, but multiple-table UPDATE statements can use any type of join allowed in SELECT statements, such as LEFT JOIN.

Note: You cannot use ORDER BY or LIMIT with multiple-table UPDATE.

Before MySQL 4.0.18, you need the UPDATE privilege for all tables used in a multiple-table UPDATE, even if they were not updated. As of MySQL 4.0.18, you need only the SELECT privilege for any columns that are read but not modified.

If you use a multiple-table UPDATE statement involving InnoDB tables for which there are foreign key constraints, the MySQL optimizer might process tables in an order that differs from that of their parent/child relationship. In this case, the statement will fail and roll back. Instead, update a single table and rely on the ON UPDATE capabilities that InnoDB provides to cause the other tables to be modified accordingly.

Currently, you cannot update a table and select from the same table in a subquery.

13.2 Data Definition Statements

13.2.1 ALTER DATABASE Syntax

ALTER {DATABASE | SCHEMA} [db_name]
    alter_specification [, alter_specification] ...

alter_specification:
    [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name
  | [DEFAULT] COLLATE collation_name

ALTER DATABASE allows you to change the overall characteristics of a database. These characteristics are stored in the `db.opt' file in the database directory. To use ALTER DATABASE, you need the ALTER privilege on the database.

The CHARACTER SET clause changes the default database character set. The COLLATE clause changes the default database collation. Character set and collation names are discussed in section 10 Character Set Support.

ALTER DATABASE was added in MySQL 4.1.1. Beginning with MySQL 4.1.8, the database name can be omitted. The statement applies to the default database in this case. ALTER SCHEMA can be used as of MySQL 5.0.2.

13.2.2 ALTER TABLE Syntax

ALTER [IGNORE] TABLE tbl_name
    alter_specification [, alter_specification] ...

alter_specification:
    ADD [COLUMN] column_definition [FIRST | AFTER col_name ]
  | ADD [COLUMN] (column_definition,...)
  | ADD INDEX [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]]
        PRIMARY KEY [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]]
        UNIQUE [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | ADD [FULLTEXT|SPATIAL] [index_name] (index_col_name,...)
  | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]]
        FOREIGN KEY [index_name] (index_col_name,...)
        [reference_definition]
  | ALTER [COLUMN] col_name {SET DEFAULT literal | DROP DEFAULT}
  | CHANGE [COLUMN] old_col_name column_definition
        [FIRST|AFTER col_name]
  | MODIFY [COLUMN] column_definition [FIRST | AFTER col_name]
  | DROP [COLUMN] col_name
  | DROP PRIMARY KEY
  | DROP INDEX index_name
  | DROP FOREIGN KEY fk_symbol
  | DISABLE KEYS
  | ENABLE KEYS
  | RENAME [TO] new_tbl_name
  | ORDER BY col_name
  | CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET charset_name [COLLATE collation_name]
  | [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name [COLLATE collation_name]
  | DISCARD TABLESPACE
  | IMPORT TABLESPACE
  | table_options

ALTER TABLE allows you to change the structure of an existing table. For example, you can add or delete columns, create or destroy indexes, change the type of existing columns, or rename columns or the table itself. You can also change the comment for the table and type of the table.

The syntax for many of the allowable alterations is similar to clauses of the CREATE TABLE statement. See section 13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax.

Some operations may result in warnings if attempted on a table for which the storage engine does not support the operation. In MySQL 4.1 and up, these warnings can be displayed with SHOW WARNINGS. See section 13.5.4.20 SHOW WARNINGS Syntax.

If you use ALTER TABLE to change a column specification but DESCRIBE tbl_name indicates that your column was not changed, it is possible that MySQL ignored your modification for one of the reasons described in section 13.2.6.1 Silent Column Specification Changes. For example, if you try to change a VARCHAR column to CHAR, MySQL will still use VARCHAR if the table contains other variable-length columns.

ALTER TABLE works by making a temporary copy of the original table. The alteration is performed on the copy, then the original table is deleted and the new one is renamed. While ALTER TABLE is executing, the original table is readable by other clients. Updates and writes to the table are stalled until the new table is ready, then are automatically redirected to the new table without any failed updates.

Note that if you use any other option to ALTER TABLE than RENAME, MySQL always creates a temporary table, even if the data wouldn't strictly need to be copied (such as when you change the name of a column). We plan to fix this in the future, but because ALTER TABLE is not a statement that is normally used frequently, this isn't high on our TODO list. For MyISAM tables, you can speed up the index re-creation operation (which is the slowest part of the alteration process) by setting the myisam_sort_buffer_size system variable to a high value.

• To use ALTER TABLE, you need ALTER, INSERT, and CREATE privileges for the table.
• IGNORE is a MySQL extension to standard SQL. It controls how ALTER TABLE works if there are duplicates on unique keys in the new table. If IGNORE isn't specified, the copy is aborted and rolled back if duplicate-key errors occur. If IGNORE is specified, then for rows with duplicates on a unique key, only the first row is used. The others are deleted.
• You can issue multiple ADD, ALTER, DROP, and CHANGE clauses in a single ALTER TABLE statement. This is a MySQL extension to standard SQL, which allows only one of each clause per ALTER TABLE statement. For example, to drop multiple columns in a single statement:

  mysql> ALTER TABLE t2 DROP COLUMN c, DROP COLUMN d;
  

• CHANGE col_name, DROP col_name, and DROP INDEX are MySQL extensions to standard SQL.
• MODIFY is an Oracle extension to ALTER TABLE.
• The word COLUMN is purely optional and can be omitted.
• If you use ALTER TABLE tbl_name RENAME TO new_tbl_name without any other options, MySQL simply renames any files that correspond to the table tbl_name. There is no need to create a temporary table. (You can also use the RENAME TABLE statement to rename tables. See section 13.2.12 RENAME TABLE Syntax.)
• column_definition clauses use the same syntax for ADD and CHANGE as for CREATE TABLE. Note that this syntax includes the column name, not just the column type. See section 13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax.
• You can rename a column using a CHANGE old_col_name column_definition clause. To do so, specify the old and new column names and the type that the column currently has. For example, to rename an INTEGER column from a to b, you can do this:

  mysql> ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE a b INTEGER;
  

  If you want to change a column's type but not the name, CHANGE syntax still requires an old and new column name, even if they are the same. For example:

  mysql> ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE b b BIGINT NOT NULL;
  

  However, as of MySQL 3.22.16a, you can also use MODIFY to change a column's type without renaming it:

  mysql> ALTER TABLE t1 MODIFY b BIGINT NOT NULL;
  

• If you use CHANGE or MODIFY to shorten a column for which an index exists on part of the column (for example, if you have an index on the first 10 characters of a VARCHAR column), you cannot make the column shorter than the number of characters that are indexed.
• When you change a column type using CHANGE or MODIFY, MySQL tries to convert existing column values to the new type as well as possible.
• In MySQL 3.22 or later, you can use FIRST or AFTER col_name to add a column at a specific position within a table row. The default is to add the column last. From MySQL 4.0.1 on, you can also use FIRST and AFTER in CHANGE or MODIFY operations.
• ALTER COLUMN specifies a new default value for a column or removes the old default value. If the old default is removed and the column can be NULL, the new default is NULL. If the column cannot be NULL, MySQL assigns a default value, as described in section 13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax.
• DROP INDEX removes an index. This is a MySQL extension to standard SQL. See section 13.2.9 DROP INDEX Syntax.
• If columns are dropped from a table, the columns are also removed from any index of which they are a part. If all columns that make up an index are dropped, the index is dropped as well.
• If a table contains only one column, the column cannot be dropped. If what you intend is to remove the table, use DROP TABLE instead.
• DROP PRIMARY KEY drops the primary index. (Prior to MySQL 4.1.2, if no primary index exists, DROP PRIMARY KEY drops the first UNIQUE index in the table. MySQL marks the first UNIQUE key as the PRIMARY KEY if no PRIMARY KEY was specified explicitly.) If you add a UNIQUE INDEX or PRIMARY KEY to a table, it is stored before any non-unique index so that MySQL can detect duplicate keys as early as possible.
• ORDER BY allows you to create the new table with the rows in a specific order. Note that the table will not remain in this order after inserts and deletes. This option is mainly useful when you know that you are mostly going to query the rows in a certain order; by using this option after big changes to the table, you might be able to get higher performance. In some cases, it might make sorting easier for MySQL if the table is in order by the column that you want to order it by later.
• If you use ALTER TABLE on a MyISAM table, all non-unique indexes are created in a separate batch (as for REPAIR TABLE). This should make ALTER TABLE much faster when you have many indexes. As of MySQL 4.0, this feature can be activated explicitly. ALTER TABLE ... DISABLE KEYS tells MySQL to stop updating non-unique indexes for a MyISAM table. ALTER TABLE ... ENABLE KEYS then should be used to re-create missing indexes. MySQL does this with a special algorithm that is much faster than inserting keys one by one, so disabling keys before performing bulk insert operations should give a considerable speedup. Using ALTER TABLE ... DISABLE KEYS will require the INDEX privilege in addition to the privileges mentioned earlier.
• The FOREIGN KEY and REFERENCES clauses are supported by the InnoDB storage engine, which implements ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] FOREIGN KEY (...) REFERENCES ... (...). See section 15.7.4 FOREIGN KEY Constraints. For other storage engines, the clauses are parsed but ignored. The CHECK clause is parsed but ignored by all storage engines. See section 13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax. The reason for accepting but ignoring syntax clauses is for compatibility, to make it easier to port code from other SQL servers, and to run applications that create tables with references. See section 1.5.5 MySQL Differences from Standard SQL.
• Starting from MySQL 4.0.13, InnoDB supports the use of ALTER TABLE to drop foreign keys:

  ALTER TABLE yourtablename DROP FOREIGN KEY fk_symbol;
  

  For more information, see section 15.7.4 FOREIGN KEY Constraints.
• ALTER TABLE ignores the DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY table options.
• From MySQL 4.1.2 on, if you want to change all character columns (CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT) to a new character set, use a statement like this:

  ALTER TABLE tbl_name CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET charset_name;
  

  This is useful, for example, after upgrading from MySQL 4.0.x to 4.1.x. See section 10.10 Upgrading Character Sets from MySQL 4.0. Warning: The preceding operation will convert column values between the character sets. This is not what you want if you have a column in one character set (like latin1) but the stored values actually use some other, incompatible character set (like utf8). In this case, you have to do the following for each such column:

  ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE c1 c1 BLOB;
  ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE c1 c1 TEXT CHARACTER SET utf8;
  

  The reason this works is that there is no conversion when you convert to or from BLOB columns. To change only the default character set for a table, use this statement:

  ALTER TABLE tbl_name DEFAULT CHARACTER SET charset_name;
  

  The word DEFAULT is optional. The default character set is the character set that is used if you don't specify the character set for a new column you add to a table (for example, with ALTER TABLE ... ADD column). Warning: From MySQL 4.1.2 and up, ALTER TABLE ... DEFAULT CHARACTER SET and ALTER TABLE ... CHARACTER SET are equivalent and change only the default table character set. In MySQL 4.1 releases before 4.1.2, ALTER TABLE ... DEFAULT CHARACTER SET changes the default character set, but ALTER TABLE ... CHARACTER SET (without DEFAULT) changes the default character set and also converts all columns to the new character set.
• For an InnoDB table that is created with its own tablespace in an `.ibd' file, that file can be discarded and imported. To discard the `.ibd' file, use this statement:

  ALTER TABLE tbl_name DISCARD TABLESPACE;
  

  This deletes the current `.ibd' file, so be sure that you have a backup first. Attempting to access the table while the tablespace file is discarded results in an error. To import the backup `.ibd' file back into the table, copy it into the database directory, then issue this statement:

  ALTER TABLE tbl_name IMPORT TABLESPACE;
  

  See section 15.7.6 Using Per-Table Tablespaces.
• With the mysql_info() C API function, you can find out how many records were copied, and (when IGNORE is used) how many records were deleted due to duplication of unique key values. See section 21.2.3.31 mysql_info().

Here are some examples that show uses of ALTER TABLE. Begin with a table t1 that is created as shown here:

mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (a INTEGER,b CHAR(10));

To rename the table from t1 to t2:

mysql> ALTER TABLE t1 RENAME t2;

To change column a from INTEGER to TINYINT NOT NULL (leaving the name the same), and to change column b from CHAR(10) to CHAR(20) as well as renaming it from b to c:

mysql> ALTER TABLE t2 MODIFY a TINYINT NOT NULL, CHANGE b c CHAR(20);

To add a new TIMESTAMP column named d:

mysql> ALTER TABLE t2 ADD d TIMESTAMP;

To add indexes on column d and on column a:

mysql> ALTER TABLE t2 ADD INDEX (d), ADD INDEX (a);

To remove column c:

mysql> ALTER TABLE t2 DROP COLUMN c;

To add a new AUTO_INCREMENT integer column named c:

mysql> ALTER TABLE t2 ADD c INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    ->     ADD PRIMARY KEY (c);

Note that we indexed c (as a PRIMARY KEY), because AUTO_INCREMENT columns must be indexed, and also that we declare c as NOT NULL, because primary key columns cannot be NULL.

When you add an AUTO_INCREMENT column, column values are filled in with sequence numbers for you automatically. For MyISAM tables, you can set the first sequence number by executing SET INSERT_ID=value before ALTER TABLE or by using the AUTO_INCREMENT=value table option. See section 13.5.3 SET Syntax.

From MySQL 5.0.3, you can use the ALTER TABLE ... AUTO_INCREMENT=value table option for InnoDB tables to set the sequence number for new rows if the value is greater than the maximum value in the AUTO_INCREMENT column. If the value is less than the maximum column value, no error message is given and the current sequence value is not changed.

With MyISAM tables, if you don't change the AUTO_INCREMENT column, the sequence number will not be affected. If you drop an AUTO_INCREMENT column and then add another AUTO_INCREMENT column, the numbers are resequenced beginning with 1.

See section A.7.1 Problems with ALTER TABLE.

13.2.3 ALTER VIEW Syntax

ALTER [ALGORITHM = {UNDEFINED | MERGE | TEMPTABLE}]
    VIEW view_name [(column_list)]
    AS select_statement
    [WITH [CASCADED | LOCAL] CHECK OPTION]

This statement changes the definition of an existing view. The syntax is similar to that for CREATE VIEW. See section 13.2.7 CREATE VIEW Syntax.

This statement was added in MySQL 5.0.1.

13.2.4 CREATE DATABASE Syntax

CREATE {DATABASE | SCHEMA} [IF NOT EXISTS] db_name
    [create_specification [, create_specification] ...]

create_specification:
    [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name
  | [DEFAULT] COLLATE collation_name

CREATE DATABASE creates a database with the given name. To use CREATE DATABASE, you need the CREATE privilege on the database.

Rules for allowable database names are given in section 9.2 Database, Table, Index, Column, and Alias Names. An error occurs if the database already exists and you didn't specify IF NOT EXISTS.

As of MySQL 4.1.1, create_specification options can be given to specify database characteristics. Database characteristics are stored in the `db.opt' file in the database directory. The CHARACTER SET clause specifies the default database character set. The COLLATE clause specifies the default database collation. Character set and collation names are discussed in section 10 Character Set Support.

Databases in MySQL are implemented as directories containing files that correspond to tables in the database. Because there are no tables in a database when it is initially created, the CREATE DATABASE statement only creates a directory under the MySQL data directory (and the `db.opt' file, for MySQL 4.1.1 and up).

CREATE SCHEMA can be used as of MySQL 5.0.2.

You can also use the mysqladmin program to create databases. See section 8.4 mysqladmin, Administering a MySQL Server.

13.2.5 CREATE INDEX Syntax

CREATE [UNIQUE|FULLTEXT|SPATIAL] INDEX index_name
    [USING index_type]
    ON tbl_name (index_col_name,...)

index_col_name:
    col_name [(length)] [ASC | DESC]

In MySQL 3.22 or later, CREATE INDEX is mapped to an ALTER TABLE statement to create indexes. See section 13.2.2 ALTER TABLE Syntax. The CREATE INDEX statement doesn't do anything prior to MySQL 3.22.

Normally, you create all indexes on a table at the time the table itself is created with CREATE TABLE. See section 13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax. CREATE INDEX allows you to add indexes to existing tables.

A column list of the form (col1,col2,...) creates a multiple-column index. Index values are formed by concatenating the values of the given columns.

For CHAR and VARCHAR columns, indexes can be created that use only part of a column, using col_name(length) syntax to index a prefix consisting of the first length characters of each column value. BLOB and TEXT columns also can be indexed, but a prefix length must be given.

The statement shown here creates an index using the first 10 characters of the name column:

CREATE INDEX part_of_name ON customer (name(10));

Because most names usually differ in the first 10 characters, this index should not be much slower than an index created from the entire name column. Also, using partial columns for indexes can make the index file much smaller, which could save a lot of disk space and might also speed up INSERT operations!

Prefixes can be up to 255 bytes long (or 1000 bytes for MyISAM and InnoDB tables as of MySQL 4.1.2). Note that prefix limits are measured in bytes, whereas the prefix length in CREATE INDEX statements is interpreted as number of characters. Take this into account when specifying a prefix length for a column that uses a multi-byte character set.

You can add an index on a column that can have NULL values only if you are using MySQL 3.23.2 or newer and are using the MyISAM, InnoDB, or BDB table type. You can only add an index on a BLOB or TEXT column if you are using MySQL 3.23.2 or newer and are using the MyISAM or BDB table type, or MySQL 4.0.14 or newer and the InnoDB table type.

An index_col_name specification can end with ASC or DESC. These keywords are allowed for future extensions for specifying ascending or descending index value storage. Currently they are parsed but ignored; index values are always stored in ascending order.

From MySQL 4.1.0 on, some storage engines allow you to specify an index type when creating an index. The syntax for the index_type specifier is USING type_name. The allowable type_name values supported by different storage engines are shown in the following table. Where multiple index types are listed, the first one is the default when no index_type specifier is given.

Example:

CREATE TABLE lookup (id INT) ENGINE = MEMORY;
CREATE INDEX id_index USING BTREE ON lookup (id);

TYPE type_name can be used as a synonym for USING type_name to specify an index type. However, USING is the preferred form. Also, the index name that precedes the index type in the index specification syntax is not optional with TYPE. This is because, unlike USING, TYPE is not a reserved word and thus is interpreted as an index name.

If you specify an index type that is not legal for a storage engine, but there is another index type available that the engine can use without affecting query results, the engine will use the available type.

For more information about how MySQL uses indexes, see section 7.4.5 How MySQL Uses Indexes.

FULLTEXT indexes can index only CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns, and only in MyISAM tables. FULLTEXT indexes are available in MySQL 3.23.23 or later. section 12.6 Full-Text Search Functions.

SPATIAL indexes can index only spatial columns, and only in MyISAM tables. SPATIAL indexes are available in MySQL 4.1 or later. Spatial column types are described in section 18 Spatial Extensions in MySQL.

13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax

CREATE [TEMPORARY] TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tbl_name
    [(create_definition,...)]
    [table_options] [select_statement]

Or:

CREATE [TEMPORARY] TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tbl_name
    [(] LIKE old_tbl_name [)];

create_definition:
    column_definition
  | [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] PRIMARY KEY [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | KEY [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | INDEX [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] UNIQUE [INDEX]
        [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | [FULLTEXT|SPATIAL] [INDEX] [index_name] (index_col_name,...)
  | [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] FOREIGN KEY
        [index_name] (index_col_name,...) [reference_definition]
  | CHECK (expr)

column_definition:
    col_name type [NOT NULL | NULL] [DEFAULT default_value]
        [AUTO_INCREMENT] [[PRIMARY] KEY] [COMMENT 'string']
        [reference_definition]

type:
    TINYINT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | SMALLINT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | MEDIUMINT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | INT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | INTEGER[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | BIGINT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | REAL[(length,decimals)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | DOUBLE[(length,decimals)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | FLOAT[(length,decimals)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | DECIMAL(length,decimals) [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | NUMERIC(length,decimals) [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | DATE
  | TIME
  | TIMESTAMP
  | DATETIME
  | CHAR(length) [BINARY | ASCII | UNICODE]
  | VARCHAR(length) [BINARY]
  | TINYBLOB
  | BLOB
  | MEDIUMBLOB
  | LONGBLOB
  | TINYTEXT
  | TEXT
  | MEDIUMTEXT
  | LONGTEXT
  | ENUM(value1,value2,value3,...)
  | SET(value1,value2,value3,...)
  | spatial_type

index_col_name:
    col_name [(length)] [ASC | DESC]

reference_definition:
    REFERENCES tbl_name [(index_col_name,...)]
               [MATCH FULL | MATCH PARTIAL | MATCH SIMPLE]
               [ON DELETE reference_option]
               [ON UPDATE reference_option]

reference_option:
    RESTRICT | CASCADE | SET NULL | NO ACTION | SET DEFAULT

table_options: table_option [table_option] ...

table_option:
    {ENGINE|TYPE} = {BDB|HEAP|ISAM|InnoDB|MERGE|MRG_MYISAM|MYISAM}
  | AUTO_INCREMENT = value
  | AVG_ROW_LENGTH = value
  | CHECKSUM = {0 | 1}
  | COMMENT = 'string'
  | MAX_ROWS = value
  | MIN_ROWS = value
  | PACK_KEYS = {0 | 1 | DEFAULT}
  | PASSWORD = 'string'
  | DELAY_KEY_WRITE = {0 | 1}
  | ROW_FORMAT = {DEFAULT|DYNAMIC|FIXED|COMPRESSED|REDUNDANT|COMPACT}
  | RAID_TYPE = { 1 | STRIPED | RAID0 }
        RAID_CHUNKS = value
        RAID_CHUNKSIZE = value
  | UNION = (tbl_name[,tbl_name]...)
  | INSERT_METHOD = { NO | FIRST | LAST }
  | DATA DIRECTORY = 'absolute path to directory'
  | INDEX DIRECTORY = 'absolute path to directory'
  | [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name [COLLATE collation_name]

select_statement:
    [IGNORE | REPLACE] [AS] SELECT ...   (Some legal select statement)

CREATE TABLE creates a table with the given name. You must have the CREATE privilege for the table.

Rules for allowable table names are given in section 9.2 Database, Table, Index, Column, and Alias Names. By default, the table is created in the current database. An error occurs if the table already exists, if there is no current database, or if the database does not exist.

In MySQL 3.22 or later, the table name can be specified as db_name.tbl_name to create the table in a specific database. This works whether or not there is a current database. If you use quoted identifiers, quote the database and table names separately. For example, `mydb`.`mytbl` is legal, but `mydb.mytbl` is not.

From MySQL 3.23 on, you can use the TEMPORARY keyword when creating a table. A TEMPORARY table is visible only to the current connection, and is dropped automatically when the connection is closed. This means that two different connections can use the same temporary table name without conflicting with each other or with an existing non-TEMPORARY table of the same name. (The existing table is hidden until the temporary table is dropped.) From MySQL 4.0.2 on, you must have the CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES privilege to be able to create temporary tables.

In MySQL 3.23 or later, you can use the keywords IF NOT EXISTS so that an error does not occur if the table already exists. Note that there is no verification that the existing table has a structure identical to that indicated by the CREATE TABLE statement.

MySQL represents each table by an `.frm' table format (definition) file in the database directory. The storage engine for the table might create other files as well. In the case of MyISAM tables, the storage engine creates three files for a table named tbl_name:

The files created by each storage engine to represent tables are described in section 14 MySQL Storage Engines and Table Types.

For general information on the properties of the various column types, see section 11 Column Types. For information about spatial column types, see section 18 Spatial Extensions in MySQL.

• If neither NULL nor NOT NULL is specified, the column is treated as though NULL had been specified.
• An integer column can have the additional attribute AUTO_INCREMENT. When you insert a value of NULL (recommended) or 0 into an indexed AUTO_INCREMENT column, the column is set to the next sequence value. Typically this is value+1, where value is the largest value for the column currently in the table. AUTO_INCREMENT sequences begin with 1. See section 21.2.3.33 mysql_insert_id(). As of MySQL 4.1.1, specifying the NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO flag for the --sql-mode server option or the sql_mode system variable allows you to store 0 in AUTO_INCREMENT columns as 0 without generating a new sequence value. See section 5.2.1 mysqld Command-Line Options. Note: There can be only one AUTO_INCREMENT column per table, it must be indexed, and it cannot have a DEFAULT value. As of MySQL 3.23, an AUTO_INCREMENT column will work properly only if it contains only positive values. Inserting a negative number is regarded as inserting a very large positive number. This is done to avoid precision problems when numbers ``wrap'' over from positive to negative and also to ensure that you don't accidentally get an AUTO_INCREMENT column that contains 0. For MyISAM and BDB tables, you can specify an AUTO_INCREMENT secondary column in a multiple-column key. See section 3.6.9 Using AUTO_INCREMENT. To make MySQL compatible with some ODBC applications, you can find the AUTO_INCREMENT value for the last inserted row with the following query:

  SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE auto_col IS NULL
  

• As of MySQL 4.1, character column definitions can include a CHARACTER SET attribute to specify the character set and, optionally, a collation for the column. For details, see section 10 Character Set Support.

  CREATE TABLE t (c CHAR(20) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin);
  

  Also as of 4.1, MySQL interprets length specifications in character column definitions in characters. (Earlier versions interpret them in bytes.)
• NULL values are handled differently for TIMESTAMP columns than for other column types. Before MySQL 4.1.6, you cannot store a literal NULL in a TIMESTAMP column; setting the column to NULL sets it to the current date and time. Because TIMESTAMP columns behave this way, the NULL and NOT NULL attributes do not apply in the normal way and are ignored if you specify them. On the other hand, to make it easier for MySQL clients to use TIMESTAMP columns, the server reports that such columns can be assigned NULL values (which is true), even though TIMESTAMP never actually will contain a NULL value. You can see this when you use DESCRIBE tbl_name to get a description of your table. Note that setting a TIMESTAMP column to 0 is not the same as setting it to NULL, because 0 is a valid TIMESTAMP value.
• The DEFAULT clause specifies a default value for a column. With one exception, the default value must be a constant; it cannot be a function or an expression. This means, for example, that you cannot set the default for a date column to be the value of a function such as NOW() or CURRENT_DATE. The exception is that you can specify CURRENT_TIMESTAMP as the default for a TIMESTAMP column as of MySQL 4.1.2. See section 11.3.1.2 TIMESTAMP Properties as of MySQL 4.1. Prior to MySQL 5.0.2, if a column definition includes no explicit DEFAULT value, MySQL determines the default value as follows: If the column can take NULL as a value, the column is defined with an explicit DEFAULT NULL clause. If the column cannot take NULL as the value, MySQL defines the column with an explicit DEFAULT clause, using the implicit default value for the column data type. Implicit defaults are defined as follows:
  • For numeric types other than those declared with the AUTO_INCREMENT attribute, the default is 0. For an AUTO_INCREMENT column, the default value is the next value in the sequence.
  • For date and time types other than TIMESTAMP, the default is the appropriate ``zero'' value for the type. For the first TIMESTAMP column in a table, the default value is the current date and time. See section 11.3 Date and Time Types.
  • For string types other than ENUM, the default value is the empty string. For ENUM, the default is the first enumeration value.
  BLOB and TEXT columns cannot be assigned a default value. As of MySQL 5.0.2, if a column definition includes no explicit DEFAULT value, MySQL determines the default value as follows: If the column can take NULL as a value, the column is defined with an explicit DEFAULT NULL clause. This is the same as before 5.0.2. If the column cannot take NOT NULL as the value, MySQL defines the column with no explicit DEFAULT clause. For data entry, if an INSERT or REPLACE statement includes no value for the column, MySQL handles the column according to the SQL mode in effect at the time:
  • If strict mode is not enabled, MySQL sets the column to the implicit value for the column data type.
  • If strict mode is enabled, an error occurs for transactional tables and the statement is rolled back. For non-transactional tables, an error occurs unless the row is the second or subsequent row of a multiple-row statement, in which case a warning occurs.
  See section 5.2.2 The Server SQL Mode. For a given table, you can use the SHOW CREATE TABLE statement to see which columns have an explicit DEFAULT clause.
• A comment for a column can be specified with the COMMENT option. The comment is displayed by the SHOW CREATE TABLE and SHOW FULL COLUMNS statements. This option is operational as of MySQL 4.1. (It is allowed but ignored in earlier versions.)
• From MySQL 4.1.0 on, the attribute SERIAL can be used as an alias for BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT UNIQUE. This is a compatibility feature.
• KEY is normally a synonym for INDEX. From MySQL 4.1, the key attribute PRIMARY KEY can also be specified as just KEY when given in a column definition. This was implemented for compatibility with other database systems.
• In MySQL, a UNIQUE index is one in which all values in the index must be distinct. An error occurs if you try to add a new row with a key that matches an existing row. The exception to this is that if a column in the index is allowed to contain NULL values, it can contain multiple NULL values. This exception does not apply to BDB tables, for which an indexed column allows only a single NULL.
• A PRIMARY KEY is a unique KEY where all key columns must be defined as NOT NULL. If they are not explicitly declared as NOT NULL, MySQL will declare them so implicitly (and silently). A table can have only one PRIMARY KEY. If you don't have a PRIMARY KEY and an application asks for the PRIMARY KEY in your tables, MySQL returns the first UNIQUE index that has no NULL columns as the PRIMARY KEY.
• In the created table, a PRIMARY KEY is placed first, followed by all UNIQUE indexes, and then the non-unique indexes. This helps the MySQL optimizer to prioritize which index to use and also more quickly to detect duplicated UNIQUE keys.
• A PRIMARY KEY can be a multiple-column index. However, you cannot create a multiple-column index using the PRIMARY KEY key attribute in a column specification. Doing so will mark only that single column as primary. You must use a separate PRIMARY KEY(index_col_name, ...) clause.
• If a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE index consists of only one column that has an integer type, you can also refer to the column as _rowid in SELECT statements (new in MySQL 3.23.11).
• In MySQL, the name of a PRIMARY KEY is PRIMARY. For other indexes, if you don't assign a name, the index is assigned the same name as the first indexed column, with an optional suffix (_2, _3, ...) to make it unique. You can see index names for a table using SHOW INDEX FROM tbl_name. See section 13.5.4.11 SHOW INDEX Syntax.
• From MySQL 4.1.0 on, some storage engines allow you to specify an index type when creating an index. The syntax for the index_type specifier is USING type_name. Example:

  CREATE TABLE lookup
      (id INT, INDEX USING BTREE (id))
      ENGINE = MEMORY;
  

  For details about USING, see section 13.2.5 CREATE INDEX Syntax. For more information about how MySQL uses indexes, see section 7.4.5 How MySQL Uses Indexes.
• Only the MyISAM, InnoDB, BDB, and (as of MySQL 4.0.2) MEMORY storage engines support indexes on columns that can have NULL values. In other cases, you must declare indexed columns as NOT NULL or an error results.
• With col_name(length) syntax in an index specification, you can create an index that uses only the first length characters of a CHAR or VARCHAR column. Indexing only a prefix of column values like this can make the index file much smaller. See section 7.4.3 Column Indexes. The MyISAM and (as of MySQL 4.0.14) InnoDB storage engines also support indexing on BLOB and TEXT columns. When indexing a BLOB or TEXT column, you must specify a prefix length for the index. For example:

  CREATE TABLE test (blob_col BLOB, INDEX(blob_col(10)));
  

  Prefixes can be up to 255 bytes long (or 1000 bytes for MyISAM and InnoDB tables as of MySQL 4.1.2). Note that prefix limits are measured in bytes, whereas the prefix length in CREATE TABLE statements is interpreted as number of characters. Take this into account when specifying a prefix length for a column that uses a multi-byte character set.
• An index_col_name specification can end with ASC or DESC. These keywords are allowed for future extensions for specifying ascending or descending index value storage. Currently they are parsed but ignored; index values are always stored in ascending order.
• When you use ORDER BY or GROUP BY with a TEXT or BLOB column, the server sorts values using only the initial number of bytes indicated by the max_sort_length system variable. See section 11.4.3 The BLOB and TEXT Types.
• In MySQL 3.23.23 or later, you can create special FULLTEXT indexes. They are used for full-text search. Only the MyISAM table type supports FULLTEXT indexes. They can be created only from CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns. Indexing always happens over the entire column; partial indexing is not supported and any prefix length is ignored if specified. See section 12.6 Full-Text Search Functions for details of operation.
• In MySQL 4.1 or later, you can create SPATIAL indexes on spatial column types. Spatial types are supported only for MyISAM tables and indexed columns must be declared as NOT NULL. See section 18 Spatial Extensions in MySQL.
• In MySQL 3.23.44 or later, InnoDB tables support checking of foreign key constraints. See section 15 The InnoDB Storage Engine. Note that the FOREIGN KEY syntax in InnoDB is more restrictive than the syntax presented for the CREATE TABLE statement at the beginning of this section: The columns of the referenced table must always be explicitly named. InnoDB supports both ON DELETE and ON UPDATE actions on foreign keys as of MySQL 3.23.50 and 4.0.8, respectively. For the precise syntax, see section 15.7.4 FOREIGN KEY Constraints. For other storage engines, MySQL Server parses the FOREIGN KEY and REFERENCES syntax in CREATE TABLE statements, but without further action being taken. The CHECK clause is parsed but ignored by all storage engines. See section 1.5.5.5 Foreign Keys.
• For MyISAM and ISAM tables, each NULL column takes one bit extra, rounded up to the nearest byte. The maximum record length in bytes can be calculated as follows:

  row length = 1
               + (sum of column lengths)
               + (number of NULL columns + delete_flag + 7)/8
               + (number of variable-length columns)
  

  delete_flag is 1 for tables with static record format. Static tables use a bit in the row record for a flag that indicates whether the row has been deleted. delete_flag is 0 for dynamic tables because the flag is stored in the dynamic row header. These calculations do not apply for InnoDB tables, for which storage size is no different for NULL columns than for NOT NULL columns.

The table_options part of the CREATE TABLE syntax can be used in MySQL 3.23 and above.

The ENGINE and TYPE options specify the storage engine for the table. ENGINE was added in MySQL 4.0.18 (for 4.0) and 4.1.2 (for 4.1). It is the preferred option name as of those versions, and TYPE has become deprecated. TYPE will be supported throughout the 4.x series, but likely will be removed in MySQL 5.1.

The ENGINE and TYPE options take the following values:

See section 14 MySQL Storage Engines and Table Types.

If a storage engine is specified that is not available, MySQL uses MyISAM instead. For example, if a table definition includes the ENGINE=BDB option but the MySQL server does not support BDB tables, the table is created as a MyISAM table. This makes it possible to have a replication setup where you have transactional tables on the master but tables created on the slave are non-transactional (to get more speed). In MySQL 4.1.1, a warning occurs if the storage engine specification is not honored.

The other table options are used to optimize the behavior of the table. In most cases, you don't have to specify any of them. The options work for all storage engines unless otherwise indicated:

AUTO_INCREMENT

The initial AUTO_INCREMENT value for the table. This works for MyISAM only. To set the first auto-increment value for an InnoDB table, insert a dummy row with a value one less than the desired value after creating the table, and then delete the dummy row. In MySQL 5.0.3 or later, the initial AUTO_INCREMENT value for the table works also for the InnoDB table.

AVG_ROW_LENGTH

An approximation of the average row length for your table. You need to set this only for large tables with variable-size records. When you create a MyISAM table, MySQL uses the product of the MAX_ROWS and AVG_ROW_LENGTH options to decide how big the resulting table will be. If you don't specify either option, the maximum size for a table will be 4GB (or 2GB if your operating system only supports 2GB tables). The reason for this is just to keep down the pointer sizes to make the index smaller and faster if you don't really need big files. If you want all your tables to be able to grow above the 4GB limit and are willing to have your smaller tables slightly slower and larger than necessary, you may increase the default pointer size by setting the myisam_data_pointer_size system variable, which was added in MySQL 4.1.2. See section 5.2.3 Server System Variables.

CHECKSUM

Set this to 1 if you want MySQL to maintain a live checksum for all rows (that is, a checksum that MySQL updates automatically as the table changes). This makes the table a little slower to update, but also makes it easier to find corrupted tables. The CHECKSUM TABLE statement reports the checksum. (MyISAM only.)

COMMENT

A comment for your table, up to 60 characters long.

MAX_ROWS

The maximum number of rows you plan to store in the table.

MIN_ROWS

The minimum number of rows you plan to store in the table.

PACK_KEYS

Set this option to 1 if you want to have smaller indexes. This usually makes updates slower and reads faster. Setting the option to 0 disables all packing of keys. Setting it to DEFAULT (MySQL 4.0) tells the storage engine to only pack long CHAR/VARCHAR columns. (MyISAM and ISAM only.) If you don't use PACK_KEYS, the default is to only pack strings, not numbers. If you use PACK_KEYS=1, numbers will be packed as well. When packing binary number keys, MySQL uses prefix compression:

• Every key needs one extra byte to indicate how many bytes of the previous key are the same for the next key.
• The pointer to the row is stored in high-byte-first order directly after the key, to improve compression.

This means that if you have many equal keys on two consecutive rows, all following ``same'' keys will usually only take two bytes (including the pointer to the row). Compare this to the ordinary case where the following keys will take storage_size_for_key + pointer_size (where the pointer size is usually 4). Conversely, you will get a big benefit from prefix compression only if you have many numbers that are the same. If all keys are totally different, you will use one byte more per key, if the key isn't a key that can have NULL values. (In this case, the packed key length will be stored in the same byte that is used to mark if a key is NULL.)

PASSWORD

Encrypt the `.frm' file with a password. This option doesn't do anything in the standard MySQL version.

DELAY_KEY_WRITE

Set this to 1 if you want to delay key updates for the table until the table is closed. (MyISAM only.)

ROW_FORMAT

Defines how the rows should be stored. Currently this option works only with MyISAM tables. The option value can FIXED or DYNAMIC for static or variable-length row format. myisampack sets the type to COMPRESSED. See section 14.1.3 MyISAM Table Storage Formats. Starting with MySQL/InnoDB-5.0.3, InnoDB records are stored in a more compact format (ROW_FORMAT=COMPACT) by default. The old format can be requested by specifying ROW_FORMAT=REDUNDANT.

RAID_TYPE

The RAID_TYPE option can help you to exceed the 2GB/4GB limit for the MyISAM data file (not the index file) on operating systems that don't support big files. This option is unnecessary and not recommended for filesystems that support big files. You can get more speed from the I/O bottleneck by putting RAID directories on different physical disks. For now, the only allowed RAID_TYPE is STRIPED. 1 and RAID0 are aliases for STRIPED. If you specify the RAID_TYPE option for a MyISAM table, specify the RAID_CHUNKS and RAID_CHUNKSIZE options as well. The maximum RAID_CHUNKS value is 255. MyISAM will create RAID_CHUNKS subdirectories named `00', `01', `02', ... `09', `0a', `0b', ... in the database directory. In each of these directories, MyISAM will create a file `tbl_name.MYD'. When writing data to the data file, the RAID handler maps the first RAID_CHUNKSIZE*1024 bytes to the first file, the next RAID_CHUNKSIZE*1024 bytes to the next file, and so on. RAID_TYPE works on any operating system, as long as you have built MySQL with the --with-raid option to configure. To determine whether a server supports RAID tables, use SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'have_raid' to see whether the variable value is YES.

UNION

UNION is used when you want to use a collection of identical tables as one. This works only with MERGE tables. See section 14.2 The MERGE Storage Engine. For the moment, you must have SELECT, UPDATE, and DELETE privileges for the tables you map to a MERGE table. Originally, all used tables had to be in the same database as the MERGE table itself. This restriction has been lifted as of MySQL 4.1.1.

INSERT_METHOD

If you want to insert data in a MERGE table, you have to specify with INSERT_METHOD into which table the row should be inserted. INSERT_METHOD is an option useful for MERGE tables only. This option was introduced in MySQL 4.0.0. See section 14.2 The MERGE Storage Engine.

DATA DIRECTORY

INDEX DIRECTORY

By using DATA DIRECTORY='directory' or INDEX DIRECTORY='directory' you can specify where the MyISAM storage engine should put a table's data file and index file. Note that the directory should be a full path to the directory (not a relative path). These options work only for MyISAM tables from MySQL 4.0 on, when you are not using the --skip-symbolic-links option. Your operating system must also have a working, thread-safe realpath() call. See section 7.6.1.2 Using Symbolic Links for Tables on Unix.

As of MySQL 3.23, you can create one table from another by adding a SELECT statement at the end of the CREATE TABLE statement:

CREATE TABLE new_tbl SELECT * FROM orig_tbl;

MySQL will create new column for all elements in the SELECT. For example:

mysql> CREATE TABLE test (a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    ->        PRIMARY KEY (a), KEY(b))
    ->        TYPE=MyISAM SELECT b,c FROM test2;

This creates a MyISAM table with three columns, a, b, and c. Notice that the columns from the SELECT statement are appended to the right side of the table, not overlapped onto it. Take the following example:

mysql> SELECT * FROM foo;
+---+
| n |
+---+
| 1 |
+---+

mysql> CREATE TABLE bar (m INT) SELECT n FROM foo;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.02 sec)
Records: 1  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> SELECT * FROM bar;
+------+---+
| m    | n |
+------+---+
| NULL | 1 |
+------+---+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

For each row in table foo, a row is inserted in bar with the values from foo and default values for the new columns.

If any errors occur while copying the data to the table, it is automatically dropped and not created.

CREATE TABLE ... SELECT will not automatically create any indexes for you. This is done intentionally to make the statement as flexible as possible. If you want to have indexes in the created table, you should specify these before the SELECT statement:

mysql> CREATE TABLE bar (UNIQUE (n)) SELECT n FROM foo;

Some conversion of column types might occur. For example, the AUTO_INCREMENT attribute is not preserved, and VARCHAR columns can become CHAR columns.

When creating a table with CREATE ... SELECT, make sure to alias any function calls or expressions in the query. If you do not, the CREATE statement might fail or result in undesirable column names.

CREATE TABLE artists_and_works
SELECT artist.name, COUNT(work.artist_id) AS number_of_works
FROM artist LEFT JOIN work ON artist.id = work.artist_id
GROUP BY artist.id;

As of MySQL 4.1, you can explicitly specify the type for a generated column:

CREATE TABLE foo (a TINYINT NOT NULL) SELECT b+1 AS a FROM bar;

In MySQL 4.1, you can also use LIKE to create an empty table based on the definition of another table, including any column attributes and indexes the original table has:

CREATE TABLE new_tbl LIKE orig_tbl;

CREATE TABLE ... LIKE does not copy any DATA DIRECTORY or INDEX DIRECTORY table options that were specified for the original table, or any foreign key definitions.

You can precede the SELECT by IGNORE or REPLACE to indicate how to handle records that duplicate unique key values. With IGNORE, new records that duplicate an existing record on a unique key value are discarded. With REPLACE, new records replace records that have the same unique key value. If neither IGNORE nor REPLACE is specified, duplicate unique key values result in an error.

To ensure that the update log/binary log can be used to re-create the original tables, MySQL will not allow concurrent inserts during CREATE TABLE ... SELECT.

13.2.6.1 Silent Column Specification Changes

In some cases, MySQL silently changes column specifications from those given in a CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement:

• VARCHAR columns with a length less than four are changed to CHAR.
• If any column in a table has a variable length, the entire row becomes variable-length as a result. Therefore, if a table contains any variable-length columns (VARCHAR, TEXT, or BLOB), all CHAR columns longer than three characters are changed to VARCHAR columns. This doesn't affect how you use the columns in any way; in MySQL, VARCHAR is just a different way to store characters. MySQL performs this conversion because it saves space and makes table operations faster. See section 14 MySQL Storage Engines and Table Types.
• From MySQL 4.1.0 on, a CHAR or VARCHAR column with a length specification greater than 255 is converted to the smallest TEXT type that can hold values of the given length. For example, VARCHAR(500) is converted to TEXT, and VARCHAR(200000) is converted to MEDIUMTEXT. This is a compatibility feature.
• TIMESTAMP display sizes are discarded from MySQL 4.1 on, due to changes made to the TIMESTAMP column type in that version. Before MySQL 4.1, TIMESTAMP display sizes must be even and in the range from 2 to 14. If you specify a display size of 0 or greater than 14, the size is coerced to 14. Odd-valued sizes in the range from 1 to 13 are coerced to the next higher even number.
• You cannot store a literal NULL in a TIMESTAMP column; setting it to NULL sets it to the current date and time. Because TIMESTAMP columns behave this way, the NULL and NOT NULL attributes do not apply in the normal way and are ignored if you specify them. DESCRIBE tbl_name always reports that a TIMESTAMP column can be assigned NULL values.
• Columns that are part of a PRIMARY KEY are made NOT NULL even if not declared that way.
• Starting from MySQL 3.23.51, trailing spaces are automatically deleted from ENUM and SET member values when the table is created.
• MySQL maps certain column types used by other SQL database vendors to MySQL types. See section 11.7 Using Column Types from Other Database Engines.
• If you include a USING clause to specify an index type that is not legal for a storage engine, but there is another index type available that the engine can use without affecting query results, the engine will use the available type.

To see whether MySQL used a column type other than the one you specified, issue a DESCRIBE or SHOW CREATE TABLE statement after creating or altering your table.

Certain other column type changes can occur if you compress a table using myisampack. See section 14.1.3.3 Compressed Table Characteristics.

13.2.7 CREATE VIEW Syntax

CREATE [OR REPLACE] [ALGORITHM = {UNDEFINED | MERGE | TEMPTABLE}]
    VIEW view_name [(column_list)]
    AS select_statement
    [WITH [CASCADED | LOCAL] CHECK OPTION]

This statement creates a new view, or replaces an existing one if the OR REPLACE clause is given. The select_statement is a SELECT statement that provides the definition of the view. The statement can select from base tables or other views.

A view belongs to a database. By default, a new view is created in the current database. To create the view explicitly in a given database, specify the name as db_name.view_name when you create it.

mysql> CREATE VIEW test.v AS SELECT * FROM t;

Tables and views share the same namespace within a database, so a database cannot contain a table and a view that have the same name.

Views must have unique column names with no duplicates, just like base tables. By default, the names of the columns retrieved by the SELECT statement are used for the view column names. To define explicit names for the view columns, the optional column list can be given. In this case, the number of names in column_list must be the same as the number of columns retrieved by the SELECT statement.

Columns retrieved by the SELECT statement can be simple references to table columns. They can also be expressions that use operators, functions, constant values, and so forth.

A view can refer to columns of tables or views in other databases by qualifying the table or view name with the proper database name.

A view definition is subject to the following constraints:

• The SELECT statement cannot contain a subquery in the FROM clause.
• The SELECT statement cannot refer to user variables.
• Within a stored procedure, the definition cannot refer to procedure parameters.
• Any table or view referred to in the definition must exist. However, after a view has been created, it is possible to drop a table or view that the definition refers to. To check a view definition for problems of this kind, use the CHECK TABLE statement.
• The definition cannot refer to a TEMPORARY table, and you cannot create a TEMPORARY view.
• You cannot associate a trigger with a view.

The WITH CHECK OPTION clause can be given for an updatable view to prevent inserts or updates to rows except those for which the WHERE clause in the select_statement is true.

A view can be created from many kinds of SELECT statements. For example, the SELECT can refer to a single table, a join of multiple tables, or a UNION. The SELECT need not even refer to any tables. The following example defines a view that selects two columns from another table, as well as an expression calculated from those columns:

mysql> CREATE TABLE t (qty INT, price INT);
mysql> INSERT INTO t VALUES(3, 50);
mysql> CREATE VIEW v AS SELECT qty, price, qty*price AS value FROM t;
mysql> SELECT * FROM v;
+------+-------+-------+
| qty  | price | value |
+------+-------+-------+
|    3 |    50 |   150 |
+------+-------+-------+

In a WITH CHECK OPTION clause for an updatable view, the LOCAL and CASCADED keywords determine the scope of check testing when the view is defined in terms of another view. LOCAL keyword restricts the CHECK OPTION only to the view being defined. CASCADED causes the checks for underlying views to be evaluated as well. When neither keyword is given, the default is CASCADED. Consider the definitions for the following table and set of views:

mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (a INT);
mysql> CREATE VIEW v1 AS SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE a < 2
    -> WITH CHECK OPTION;
mysql> CREATE VIEW v2 AS SELECT * FROM v1 WHERE a > 0
    -> WITH LOCAL CHECK OPTION;
mysql> CREATE VIEW v3 AS SELECT * FROM v1 WHERE a > 0
    -> WITH CASCADED CHECK OPTION;

Here the v2 and v3 views are defined in terms of another view, v1. v2 has a LOCAL check option, so inserts are tested only against the v2 check. v3 has a CASCADED check option, so inserts are tested not only against its own check, but against those of underlying views. The following statements illustrate these differences:

ql> INSERT INTO v2 VALUES (2);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> INSERT INTO v3 VALUES (2);
ERROR 1369 (HY000): CHECK OPTION failed 'test.v3'

The CREATE VIEW statement was added in MySQL 5.0.1. The WITH CHECK OPTION clause was implemented in MySQL 5.0.2.

13.2.8 DROP DATABASE Syntax

DROP {DATABASE | SCHEMA} [IF EXISTS] db_name

DROP DATABASE drops all tables in the database and deletes the database. Be very careful with this statement! To use DROP DATABASE, you need the DROP privilege on the database.

In MySQL 3.22 or later, you can use the keywords IF EXISTS to prevent an error from occurring if the database doesn't exist.

DROP SCHEMA can be used as of MySQL 5.0.2.

If you use DROP DATABASE on a symbolically linked database, both the link and the original database are deleted.

As of MySQL 4.1.2, DROP DATABASE returns the number of tables that were removed. This corresponds to the number of `.frm' files removed.

The DROP DATABASE statement removes from the given database directory those files and directories that MySQL itself may create during normal operation:

• All files with these extensions:

  .BAK	.DAT	.HSH	.ISD
  .ISM	.ISM	.MRG	.MYD
  .MYI	.db	.frm

• All subdirectories with names that consist of two hex digits 00-ff. These are subdirectories used for RAID tables.
• The `db.opt' file, if it exists.

If other files or directories remain in the database directory after MySQL removes those just listed, the database directory cannot be removed. In this case, you must remove any remaining files or directories manually and issue the DROP DATABASE statement again.

You can also drop databases with mysqladmin. See section 8.4 mysqladmin, Administering a MySQL Server.

13.2.9 DROP INDEX Syntax

DROP INDEX index_name ON tbl_name

DROP INDEX drops the index named index_name from the table tbl_name. In MySQL 3.22 or later, DROP INDEX is mapped to an ALTER TABLE statement to drop the index. See section 13.2.2 ALTER TABLE Syntax. DROP INDEX doesn't do anything prior to MySQL 3.22.

13.2.10 DROP TABLE Syntax

DROP [TEMPORARY] TABLE [IF EXISTS]
    tbl_name [, tbl_name] ...
    [RESTRICT | CASCADE]

DROP TABLE removes one or more tables. You must have the DROP privilege for each table. All table data and the table definition are removed, so be careful with this statement!

In MySQL 3.22 or later, you can use the keywords IF EXISTS to prevent an error from occurring for tables that don't exist. As of MySQL 4.1, a NOTE is generated for each non-existent table when using IF EXISTS. See section 13.5.4.20 SHOW WARNINGS Syntax.

RESTRICT and CASCADE are allowed to make porting easier. For the moment, they do nothing.

Note: DROP TABLE automatically commits the current active transaction, unless you are using MySQL 4.1 or higher and the TEMPORARY keyword.

The TEMPORARY keyword is ignored in MySQL 4.0. As of 4.1, it has the following effect:

• The statement drops only TEMPORARY tables.
• The statement doesn't end a running transaction.
• No access rights are checked. (A TEMPORARY table is visible only to the client that created it, so no check is necessary.)

Using TEMPORARY is a good way to ensure that you don't accidentally drop a non-TEMPORARY table.

13.2.11 DROP VIEW Syntax

DROP VIEW [IF EXISTS]
    view_name [, view_name] ...
    [RESTRICT | CASCADE]

DROP VIEW removes one or more views. You must have the DROP privilege for each view.

You can use the keywords IF EXISTS to prevent an error from occurring for views that don't exist. When this clause is given, a NOTE is generated for each non-existent view. See section 13.5.4.20 SHOW WARNINGS Syntax.

RESTRICT and CASCADE, if given, are parsed and ignored.

This statement was added in MySQL 5.0.1.

13.2.12 RENAME TABLE Syntax

RENAME TABLE tbl_name TO new_tbl_name
    [, tbl_name2 TO new_tbl_name2] ...

This statement renames one or more tables. It was added in MySQL 3.23.23.

The rename operation is done atomically, which means that no other thread can access any of the tables while the rename is running. For example, if you have an existing table old_table, you can create another table new_table that has the same structure but is empty, and then replace the existing table with the empty one as follows:

CREATE TABLE new_table (...);
RENAME TABLE old_table TO backup_table, new_table TO old_table;

If the statement renames more than one table, renaming operations are done from left to right. If you want to swap two table names, you can do so like this (assuming that no table named tmp_table currently exists):

RENAME TABLE old_table TO tmp_table,
             new_table TO old_table,
             tmp_table TO new_table;

As long as two databases are on the same filesystem you can also rename a table to move it from one database to another:

RENAME TABLE current_db.tbl_name TO other_db.tbl_name;

When you execute RENAME, you can't have any locked tables or active transactions. You must also have the ALTER and DROP privileges on the original table, and the CREATE and INSERT privileges on the new table.

If MySQL encounters any errors in a multiple-table rename, it will do a reverse rename for all renamed tables to get everything back to the original state.

13.3 MySQL Utility Statements

13.3.1 DESCRIBE Syntax (Get Information About Columns)

{DESCRIBE | DESC} tbl_name [col_name | wild]

DESCRIBE provides information about a table's columns. It is a shortcut for SHOW COLUMNS FROM. See section 13.5.4.3 SHOW COLUMNS Syntax.

col_name can be a column name, or a string containing the SQL `%' and `_' wildcard characters to obtain output only for the columns with names matching the string. There is no need to enclose the string in quotes unless it contains spaces or other special characters.

mysql> DESCRIBE city;
+------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field      | Type     | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Id         | int(11)  |      | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| Name       | char(35) |      |     |         |                |
| Country    | char(3)  |      | UNI |         |                |
| District   | char(20) | YES  | MUL |         |                |
| Population | int(11)  |      |     | 0       |                |
+------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

The Null column indicates whether NULL values can be stored, with YES displayed when NULL values are allowed.

The Key column indicates whether the field is indexed. A value of PRI indicates that the field is part of the table's primary key. UNI indicates that the field is part of a UNIQUE index. The MUL value indicates that multiple occurences of a given value allowed within the field.

A field can be designated as MUL even if a UNIQUE index is used if NULL values are allowed, as multiple rows in a UNIQUE index can hold a NULL value if the column is not declared NOT NULL. Another cause for MUL on a UNIQUE index is when two columns form a composite UNIQUE index; while the combination of the columns will be unique, each column can still hold multiple occurences of a given value. Note that in a composite index only the leftmost field of the index will have an entry in the Key column.

The Default column indicates the default value that is assigned to the field.

The Extra column contains any additional information that is available about a given field. In our example the Extra column indicates that our Id column was created with the AUTO_INCREMENT keyword.

If the column types are different from what you expect them to be based on a CREATE TABLE statement, note that MySQL sometimes changes column types. See section 13.2.6.1 Silent Column Specification Changes.

The DESCRIBE statement is provided for Oracle compatibility.

The SHOW CREATE TABLE and SHOW TABLE STATUS statements also provide information about tables. See section 13.5.4 SHOW Syntax.

13.3.2 USE Syntax

USE db_name

The USE db_name statement tells MySQL to use the db_name database as the default (current) database for subsequent statements. The database remains the default until the end of the session or until another USE statement is issued:

mysql> USE db1;
mysql> SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mytable;   # selects from db1.mytable
mysql> USE db2;
mysql> SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mytable;   # selects from db2.mytable

Making a particular database current by means of the USE statement does not preclude you from accessing tables in other databases. The following example accesses the author table from the db1 database and the editor table from the db2 database:

mysql> USE db1;
mysql> SELECT author_name,editor_name FROM author,db2.editor
    ->        WHERE author.editor_id = db2.editor.editor_id;

The USE statement is provided for Sybase compatibility.

13.4 MySQL Transactional and Locking Statements

13.4.1 START TRANSACTION, COMMIT, and ROLLBACK Syntax

By default, MySQL runs with autocommit mode enabled. This means that as soon as you execute a statement that updates (modifies) a table, MySQL stores the update on disk.

If you are using transaction-safe tables (like InnoDB or BDB), you can disable autocommit mode with the following statement:

SET AUTOCOMMIT=0;

After disabling autocommit mode by setting the AUTOCOMMIT variable to zero, you must use COMMIT to store your changes to disk or ROLLBACK if you want to ignore the changes you have made since the beginning of your transaction.

If you want to disable autocommit mode for a single series of statements, you can use the START TRANSACTION statement:

START TRANSACTION;
SELECT @A:=SUM(salary) FROM table1 WHERE type=1;
UPDATE table2 SET summary=@A WHERE type=1;
COMMIT;

With START TRANSACTION, autocommit remains disabled until you end the transaction with COMMIT or ROLLBACK. The autocommit mode then reverts to its previous state.

BEGIN and BEGIN WORK can be used instead of START TRANSACTION to initiate a transaction. START TRANSACTION was added in MySQL 4.0.11. This is standard SQL syntax and is the recommended way to start an ad-hoc transaction. BEGIN and BEGIN WORK are available from MySQL 3.23.17 and 3.23.19, respectively.

As of MySQL 4.1.8, you can begin a transaction like this:

START TRANSACTION WITH CONSISTENT SNAPSHOT;

The WITH CONSISTENT SNAPSHOT clause starts a consistent read for storage engines that are capable of it. Currently, this applies only to InnoDB. The effect is the same as issuing a START TRANSACTION followed by a SELECT from any InnoDB table. See section 15.11.3 Consistent Non-Locking Read.

Beginning a transaction causes an implicit UNLOCK TABLES to be performed.

Note that if you are not using transaction-safe tables, any changes are stored at once, regardless of the status of autocommit mode.

If you issue a ROLLBACK statement after updating a non-transactional table within a transaction, an ER_WARNING_NOT_COMPLETE_ROLLBACK warning occurs. Changes to transaction-safe tables will be rolled back, but not changes to non-transaction-safe tables.

If you are using START TRANSACTION or SET AUTOCOMMIT=0, you should use the MySQL binary log for backups instead of the older update log. Transactions are stored in the binary log in one chunk, upon COMMIT. Transactions that are rolled back are not logged. (Exception: Modifications to non-transactional tables cannot be rolled back. If a transaction that is rolled back includes modifications to non-transactional tables, the entire transaction is logged with a ROLLBACK statement at the end to ensure that the modifications to those tables are replicated. This is true as of MySQL 4.0.15.) See section 5.9.4 The Binary Log.

You can change the isolation level for transactions with SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL. See section 13.4.6 SET TRANSACTION Syntax.

Rolling back can be a slow operation that can occur without the user having explicitly asked for it (for example, when an error occurs). Because of this, SHOW PROCESSLIST will display Rolling back in the State column for the connection during implicit rollback and explicit (ROLLBACK SQL command) rollbacks, starting from MySQL 4.1.8.

13.4.2 Statements That Cannot Be Rolled Back

Some statements cannot be rolled back. In general, these include data definition language (DDL) statements, such as those that create or drop databases, or those that create, drop, or alter tables.

You should design your transactions not to include such statements. If you issue a statement early in a transaction that cannot be rolled back, and then another statement later fails, the full effect of the transaction cannot be rolled back by issuing a ROLLBACK statement.

13.4.3 Statements That Cause an Implicit Commit

Each of the following statements (and any synonyms for them) implicitly end a transaction, as if you had done a COMMIT before executing the statement:

UNLOCK TABLES also ends a transaction if any tables currently are locked. Prior to MySQL 4.0.13, CREATE TABLE ends a transaction if the binary update log is enabled.

Transactions cannot be nested. This is a consequence of the implicit COMMIT performed for any current transaction when you issue a START TRANSACTION statement or one of its synonyms.

13.4.4 SAVEPOINT and ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT Syntax

SAVEPOINT identifier
ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT identifier

Starting from MySQL 4.0.14 and 4.1.1, InnoDB supports the SQL statements SAVEPOINT and ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT.

The SAVEPOINT statement sets a named transaction savepoint with a name of identifier. If the current transaction already has a savepoint with the same name, the old savepoint is deleted and a new one is set.

The ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT statement rolls back a transaction to the named savepoint. Modifications that the current transaction made to rows after the savepoint was set are undone in the rollback, but InnoDB does not release the row locks that were stored in memory after the savepoint. (Note that for a new inserted row, the lock information is carried by the transaction ID stored in the row; the lock is not separately stored in memory. In this case, the row lock is released in the undo.) Savepoints that were set at a later time than the named savepoint are deleted.

If the statement returns the following error, it means that no savepoint with the specified name exists:

ERROR 1181: Got error 153 during ROLLBACK

All savepoints of the current transaction are deleted if you execute a COMMIT, or a ROLLBACK that does not name a savepoint.

13.4.5 LOCK TABLES and UNLOCK TABLES Syntax

LOCK TABLES
    tbl_name [AS alias] {READ [LOCAL] | [LOW_PRIORITY] WRITE}
    [, tbl_name [AS alias] {READ [LOCAL] | [LOW_PRIORITY] WRITE}] ...
UNLOCK TABLES

LOCK TABLES locks tables for the current thread. UNLOCK TABLES releases any locks held by the current thread. All tables that are locked by the current thread are implicitly unlocked when the thread issues another LOCK TABLES, or when the connection to the server is closed.

Note the following regarding the use of LOCK TABLES with transactional tables:

• LOCK TABLES is not transaction-safe and implicitly commits any active transactions before attempting to lock the tables. Also, beginning a transaction (for example, with START TRANSACTION) implicitly performs an UNLOCK TABLES.
• The correct way to use LOCK TABLES with transactional tables, like InnoDB, is to set AUTOCOMMIT = 0 and not to call UNLOCK TABLES until you commit the transaction explicitly. When you call LOCK TABLES, InnoDB internally takes its own table lock, and MySQL takes its own table lock. InnoDB releases its table lock at the next commit, but for MySQL to release its table lock, you have to call UNLOCK TABLES. You should not have AUTOCOMMIT = 1, because then InnoDB releases its table lock immediately after the call of LOCK TABLES, and deadlocks will very easily happen. Starting from 4.1.9, we do not acquire the InnoDB table lock at all if AUTOCOMMIT=1. That helps old applications to avoid unnecessary deadlocks.

As of MySQL 4.0.2, to use LOCK TABLES you must have the LOCK TABLES privilege and a SELECT privilege for the involved tables. In MySQL 3.23, you must have SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE privileges for the tables.

The main reasons to use LOCK TABLES are for emulating transactions or to get more speed when updating tables. This is explained in more detail later.

If a thread obtains a READ lock on a table, that thread (and all other threads) can only read from the table. If a thread obtains a WRITE lock on a table, only the thread holding the lock can write to the table. Other threads are blocked from doing so until the lock has been released.

The difference between READ LOCAL and READ is that READ LOCAL allows non-conflicting INSERT statements (concurrent inserts) to execute while the lock is held. However, this can't be used if you are going to manipulate the database files outside MySQL while you hold the lock. For InnoDB, READ LOCAL essentially does nothing: it does not lock the table at all. The use of READ LOCAL for InnoDB tables is deprecated, because for InnoDB, a plain consistent read SELECT does the same thing, and no locks are needed.

When you use LOCK TABLES, you must lock all tables that you are going to use in your queries. While the locks obtained with a LOCK TABLES statement are in effect, you cannot access any tables that were not locked by the statement. Also, you cannot use a locked table multiple times in one query - use aliases for that. Note that in that case you must get a lock for each alias separately.

mysql> LOCK TABLE t WRITE, t AS t1 WRITE;
mysql> INSERT INTO t SELECT * FROM t;
ERROR 1100: Table 't' was not locked with LOCK TABLES
mysql> INSERT INTO t SELECT * FROM t AS t1;

If your queries refer to a table using an alias, then you must lock the table using that same alias. It will not work to lock the table without specifying the alias:

mysql> LOCK TABLE t READ;
mysql> SELECT * FROM t AS myalias;
ERROR 1100: Table 'myalias' was not locked with LOCK TABLES

Conversely, if you lock a table using an alias, you must refer to it in your queries using that alias:

mysql> LOCK TABLE t AS myalias READ;
mysql> SELECT * FROM t;
ERROR 1100: Table 't' was not locked with LOCK TABLES
mysql> SELECT * FROM t AS myalias;

WRITE locks normally have higher priority than READ locks to ensure that updates are processed as soon as possible. This means that if one thread obtains a READ lock and then another thread requests a WRITE lock, subsequent READ lock requests will wait until the WRITE thread has gotten the lock and released it. You can use LOW_PRIORITY WRITE locks to allow other threads to obtain READ locks while the thread is waiting for the WRITE lock. You should use LOW_PRIORITY WRITE locks only if you are sure that there will eventually be a time when no threads will have a READ lock.

LOCK TABLES works as follows:

1. Sort all tables to be locked in an internally defined order. From the user standpoint, this order is undefined.
2. If a table is locked with a read and a write lock, put the write lock before the read lock.
3. Lock one table at a time until the thread gets all locks.

This policy ensures that table locking is deadlock free. There are, however, other things you need to be aware of about this policy:

If you are using a LOW_PRIORITY WRITE lock for a table, it means only that MySQL will wait for this particular lock until there are no threads that want a READ lock. When the thread has gotten the WRITE lock and is waiting to get the lock for the next table in the lock table list, all other threads will wait for the WRITE lock to be released. If this becomes a serious problem with your application, you should consider converting some of your tables to transaction-safe tables.

You can safely use KILL to terminate a thread that is waiting for a table lock. See section 13.5.5.3 KILL Syntax.

Note that you should not lock any tables that you are using with INSERT DELAYED because in that case the INSERT is done by a separate thread.

Normally, you don't have to lock tables, because all single UPDATE statements are atomic; no other thread can interfere with any other currently executing SQL statement. There are a few cases when you would like to lock tables anyway:

• If you are going to run many operations on a set of MyISAM tables, it's much faster to lock the tables you are going to use. Locking MyISAM tables speeds up inserting, updating, or deleting on them. The downside is that no thread can update a READ-locked table (including the one holding the lock) and no thread can access a WRITE-locked table other than the one holding the lock. The reason some MyISAM operations are faster under LOCK TABLES is that MySQL will not flush the key cache for the locked tables until UNLOCK TABLES is called. Normally, the key cache is flushed after each SQL statement.
• If you are using a storage engine in MySQL that doesn't support transactions, you must use LOCK TABLES if you want to ensure that no other thread comes between a SELECT and an UPDATE. The example shown here requires LOCK TABLES to execute safely:

  mysql> LOCK TABLES trans READ, customer WRITE;
  mysql> SELECT SUM(value) FROM trans WHERE customer_id=some_id;
  mysql> UPDATE customer
      ->     SET total_value=sum_from_previous_statement
      ->     WHERE customer_id=some_id;
  mysql> UNLOCK TABLES;
  

  Without LOCK TABLES, it is possible that another thread might insert a new row in the trans table between execution of the SELECT and UPDATE statements.

You can avoid using LOCK TABLES in many cases by using relative updates (UPDATE customer SET value=value+new_value) or the LAST_INSERT_ID() function, See section 1.5.5.3 Transactions and Atomic Operations.

You can also avoid locking tables in some cases by using the user-level advisory lock functions GET_LOCK() and RELEASE_LOCK(). These locks are saved in a hash table in the server and implemented with pthread_mutex_lock() and pthread_mutex_unlock() for high speed. See section 12.8.4 Miscellaneous Functions.

See section 7.3.1 Locking Methods, for more information on locking policy.

You can lock all tables in all databases with read locks with the FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK statement. See section 13.5.5.2 FLUSH Syntax. This is a very convenient way to get backups if you have a filesystem such as Veritas that can take snapshots in time.

Note: If you use ALTER TABLE on a locked table, it may become unlocked. See section A.7.1 Problems with ALTER TABLE.

13.4.6 SET TRANSACTION Syntax

SET [GLOBAL | SESSION] TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL
{ READ UNCOMMITTED | READ COMMITTED | REPEATABLE READ | SERIALIZABLE }

This statement sets the transaction isolation level for the next transaction, globally, or for the current session.

The default behavior of SET TRANSACTION is to set the isolation level for the next (not yet started) transaction. If you use the GLOBAL keyword, the statement sets the default transaction level globally for all new connections created from that point on. Existing connections are unaffected. You need the SUPER privilege to do this. Using the SESSION keyword sets the default transaction level for all future transactions performed on the current connection.

For descriptions of each InnoDB transaction isolation level, see section 15.11.2 InnoDB and TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL. InnoDB supports each of these levels from MySQL 4.0.5 on. The default level is REPEATABLE READ.

You can set the initial default global isolation level for mysqld with the --transaction-isolation option. See section 5.2.1 mysqld Command-Line Options.

13.5 Database Administration Statements

13.5.1 Account Management Statements

13.5.1.1 DROP USER Syntax

DROP USER user [, user] ...

The DROP USER statement deletes one or more MySQL accounts that don't have any privileges. It serves to remove each account record from the user table. The account is named using the same format as for GRANT or REVOKE; for example, 'jeffrey'@'localhost'. The user and host parts of the account name correspond to the User and Host column values of the user table record for the account.

To remove a MySQL user account, you should use the following procedure, performing the steps in the order shown:

1. Use SHOW GRANTS to determine what privileges the account has. See section 13.5.4.10 SHOW GRANTS Syntax.
2. Use REVOKE to revoke the privileges displayed by SHOW GRANTS. This removes records for the account from all the grant tables except the user table, and revokes any global privileges listed in the user table. See section 13.5.1.2 GRANT and REVOKE Syntax.
3. Delete the account by using DROP USER to remove the user table record.

The DROP USER statement was added in MySQL 4.1.1. Before 4.1.1, you should first revoke the account privileges as just described. Then delete the user table record and flush the grant tables like this:

mysql> DELETE FROM mysql.user
    -> WHERE User='user_name' and Host='host_name';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

13.5.1.2 GRANT and REVOKE Syntax

GRANT priv_type [(column_list)] [, priv_type [(column_list)]] ...
    ON {tbl_name | * | *.* | db_name.*}
    TO user [IDENTIFIED BY [PASSWORD] 'password']
        [, user [IDENTIFIED BY [PASSWORD] 'password']] ...
    [REQUIRE
        NONE |
        [{SSL| X509}]
        [CIPHER 'cipher' [AND]]
        [ISSUER 'issuer' [AND]]
        [SUBJECT 'subject']]
    [WITH [GRANT OPTION | MAX_QUERIES_PER_HOUR count |
                          MAX_UPDATES_PER_HOUR count |
                          MAX_CONNECTIONS_PER_HOUR count]]

REVOKE priv_type [(column_list)] [, priv_type [(column_list)]] ...
    ON {tbl_name | * | *.* | db_name.*}
    FROM user [, user] ...

REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES, GRANT OPTION FROM user [, user] ...

The GRANT and REVOKE statements allow system administrators to create MySQL user accounts and to grant rights to and revoke them from accounts. GRANT and REVOKE are implemented in MySQL 3.22.11 or later. For earlier MySQL versions, these statements do nothing.

MySQL account information is stored in the tables of the mysql database. This database and the access control system are discussed extensively in section 5 Database Administration, which you should consult for additional details.

Privileges can be granted at four levels:

Global level

Global privileges apply to all databases on a given server. These privileges are stored in the mysql.user table. GRANT ALL ON *.* and REVOKE ALL ON *.* grant and revoke only global privileges.

Database level

Database privileges apply to all objects in a given database. These privileges are stored in the mysql.db and mysql.host tables. GRANT ALL ON db_name.* and REVOKE ALL ON db_name.* grant and revoke only database privileges.

Table level

Table privileges apply to all columns in a given table. These privileges are stored in the mysql.tables_priv table. GRANT ALL ON db_name.tbl_name and REVOKE ALL ON db_name.tbl_name grant and revoke only table privileges.

Column level

Column privileges apply to single columns in a given table. These privileges are stored in the mysql.columns_priv table. When using REVOKE, you must specify the same columns that were granted.

To make it easy to revoke all privileges, MySQL 4.1.2 has added the following syntax, which drops all global, database-, table-, and column-level privileges for the named users:

REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES, GRANT OPTION FROM user [, user] ...

Before MySQL 4.1.2, all privileges cannot be dropped at once. Two statements are necessary:

REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* FROM user [, user] ...
REVOKE GRANT OPTION ON *.* FROM user [, user] ...

For the GRANT and REVOKE statements, priv_type can be specified as any of the following:

USAGE can be used when you want to create a user that has no privileges.

Use SHOW GRANTS to determine what privileges the account has. See section 13.5.4.10 SHOW GRANTS Syntax.

The CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, EXECUTE, LOCK TABLES, REPLICATION ..., SHOW DATABASES and SUPER privileges are new in MySQL 4.0.2. To use them after upgrading to 4.0.2 or later, you must upgrade your grant tables. Similarly, the CREATE VIEW and SHOW VIEW privileges are new in MySQL 5.0.1. To use them after upgrading to 5.0.1 or later, you must upgrade your grant tables. See section 2.10.7 Upgrading the Grant Tables.

In older MySQL versions that do not have the SUPER privilege, the PROCESS privilege can be used instead.

You can assign global privileges by using ON *.* syntax or database privileges by using ON db_name.* syntax. If you specify ON * and you have a current database, the privileges will be granted in that database. (Warning: If you specify ON * and you don't have a current database, the privileges granted will be global!)

The EXECUTION, FILE, PROCESS, RELOAD, REPLICATION CLIENT, REPLICATION SLAVE, SHOW DATABASES, SHUTDOWN, and SUPER privileges are administrative privileges that can only be granted globally (using ON *.* syntax).

Other privileges can be granted globally or at more specific levels.

The only priv_type values you can specify for a table are SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, GRANT OPTION, INDEX, and ALTER.

The only priv_type values you can specify for a column (that is, when you use a column_list clause) are SELECT, INSERT, and UPDATE.

For the global, database, and table levels, GRANT ALL assigns only the privileges that exist at the level you are granting. For example, if you use GRANT ALL ON db_name.*, that is a database-level statement, so none of the global-only privileges such as FILE will be granted.

For column-level privileges (that is, when you specify column_list), you must explicitly name the privileges to be granted. You cannot use ALL as a privilege specifier.

MySQL allows you to create database-level privileges even if the database doesn't exist, to make it easy to prepare for database use. However, MySQL currently does not allow you to create table-level or column-level privileges if the table doesn't exist.

MySQL does not automatically revoke any privileges even if you drop a table or drop a database.

Note: the `_' and `%' wildcards are allowed when specifying database names in GRANT statements that grant privileges at the global or database levels. This means, for example, that if you want to use a `_' character as part of a database name, you should specify it as `\_' in the GRANT statement, to prevent the user from being able to access additional databases matching the wildcard pattern; for example, GRANT ... ON `foo\_bar`.* TO ....

In order to accommodate granting rights to users from arbitrary hosts, MySQL supports specifying the user value in the form user_name@host_name. If you want to specify a user_name string containing special characters (such as `-'), or a host_name string containing special characters or wildcard characters (such as `%'), you can quote the username or hostname (for example, 'test-user'@'test-hostname'). Quote the username and hostname separately.

You can specify wildcards in the hostname. For example, user_name@'%.loc.gov' applies to user_name for any host in the loc.gov domain, and user_name@'144.155.166.%' applies to user_name for any host in the 144.155.166 class C subnet.

The simple form user_name is a synonym for user_name@'%'.

MySQL doesn't support wildcards in usernames. Anonymous users are defined by inserting entries with User='' into the mysql.user table or creating a user with an empty name with the GRANT statement:

mysql> GRANT ALL ON test.* TO ''@'localhost' ...

When specifying quoted values, quote database, table, or column names as identifiers, using backticks (``'). Quote hostnames, usernames, or passwords as strings, using apostrophes (`'').

Warning: If you allow anonymous users to connect to the MySQL server, you should also grant privileges to all local users as user_name@localhost. Otherwise, the anonymous-user account for the local host in the mysql.user table will be used when named users try to log in to the MySQL server from the local machine! (This anonymous-user account is created during MySQL installation.)

You can determine whether this applies to you by executing the following query:

mysql> SELECT Host, User FROM mysql.user WHERE User='';

If you want to delete the local anonymous-user account to avoid the problem just described, use these statements:

mysql> DELETE FROM mysql.user WHERE Host='localhost' AND User='';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

For the moment, GRANT only supports host, table, database, and column names up to 60 characters long. A username can be up to 16 characters.

The privileges for a table or column are formed additively from the logical OR of the privileges at each of the four privilege levels. For example, if the mysql.user table specifies that a user has a global SELECT privilege, the privilege cannot be denied by an entry at the database, table, or column level.

The privileges for a column can be calculated as follows:

global privileges
OR (database privileges AND host privileges)
OR table privileges
OR column privileges

In most cases, you grant rights to a user at only one of the privilege levels, so life isn't normally this complicated. The details of the privilege-checking procedure are presented in section 5.5 The MySQL Access Privilege System.

If you grant privileges for a username/hostname combination that does not exist in the mysql.user table, an entry is added and remains there until deleted with a DELETE statement. In other words, GRANT may create user table entries, but REVOKE will not remove them; you must do that explicitly using DROP USER or DELETE.

In MySQL 3.22.12 or later, if a new user is created or if you have global grant privileges, the user's password is set to the password specified by the IDENTIFIED BY clause, if one is given. If the user already had a password, it is replaced by the new one.

Warning: If you create a new user but do not specify an IDENTIFIED BY clause, the user has no password. This is insecure. As of MySQL 5.0.2, you can enable the NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER SQL mode to prevent GRANT from creating new users if it would otherwise do so, unless IDENTIFIED BY is given to provide a password.

Passwords can also be set with the SET PASSWORD statement. See section 13.5.1.3 SET PASSWORD Syntax.

In the IDENTIFIED BY clause, the password should be given as the literal password value. It is unnecessary to use the PASSWORD() function as it is for the SET PASSWORD statement. For example:

GRANT ... IDENTIFIED BY 'mypass';

If you don't want to send the password in clear text and you know the hashed value that PASSWORD() would return for the password, you can specify the hashed value preceded by the keyword PASSWORD:

GRANT ... IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD '*6C8989366EAF75BB670AD8EA7A7FC1176A95CEF4';

In a C program, you can get the hashed value by using the make_scrambled_password() C API function.

If you grant privileges for a database, an entry in the mysql.db table is created if needed. If all privileges for the database are removed with REVOKE, this entry is deleted.

If a user has no privileges for a table, the table name is not displayed when the user requests a list of tables (for example, with a SHOW TABLES statement). If a user has no privileges for a database, the database name is not displayed by SHOW DATABASES unless the user has the SHOW DATABASES privilege.

The WITH GRANT OPTION clause gives the user the ability to give to other users any privileges the user has at the specified privilege level. You should be careful to whom you give the GRANT OPTION privilege, because two users with different privileges may be able to join privileges!

You cannot grant another user a privilege you don't have yourself; the GRANT OPTION privilege allows you to give away only those privileges you possess.

Be aware that when you grant a user the GRANT OPTION privilege at a particular privilege level, any privileges the user already possesses (or is given in the future!) at that level are also grantable by that user. Suppose that you grant a user the INSERT privilege on a database. If you then grant the SELECT privilege on the database and specify WITH GRANT OPTION, the user can give away not only the SELECT privilege, but also INSERT. If you then grant the UPDATE privilege to the user on the database, the user can give away INSERT, SELECT, and UPDATE.

You should not grant ALTER privileges to a normal user. If you do that, the user can try to subvert the privilege system by renaming tables!

The MAX_QUERIES_PER_HOUR count, MAX_UPDATES_PER_HOUR count, and MAX_CONNECTIONS_PER_HOUR count options are new in MySQL 4.0.2. They limit the number of queries, updates, and logins a user can perform during one hour. If count is 0 (the default), this means there is no limitation for that user. See section 5.6.4 Limiting Account Resources. Note: To specify any of these options for an existing user without affecting existing privileges, use GRANT USAGE ON *.* ... WITH MAX_....

MySQL can check X509 certificate attributes in addition to the usual authentication that is based on the username and password. To specify SSL-related options for a MySQL account, use the REQUIRE clause of the GRANT statement. (For background on the use of SSL with MySQL, see section 5.6.7 Using Secure Connections.)

There are different possibilities for limiting connection types for an account:

• If an account has no SSL or X509 requirements, unencrypted connections are allowed if the username and password are valid. However, encrypted connections also can be used at the client's option, if the client has the proper certificate and key files.
• The REQUIRE SSL option tells the server to allow only SSL-encrypted connections for the account. Note that this option can be omitted if there are any access-control records that allow non-SSL connections.

  mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test.* TO 'root'@'localhost'
      -> IDENTIFIED BY 'goodsecret' REQUIRE SSL;
  

• REQUIRE X509 means that the client must have a valid certificate but that the exact certificate, issuer, and subject do not matter. The only requirement is that it should be possible to verify its signature with one of the CA certificates.

  mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test.* TO 'root'@'localhost'
      -> IDENTIFIED BY 'goodsecret' REQUIRE X509;
  

• REQUIRE ISSUER 'issuer' places the restriction on connection attempts that the client must present a valid X509 certificate issued by CA 'issuer'. If the client presents a certificate that is valid but has a different issuer, the server rejects the connection. Use of X509 certificates always implies encryption, so the SSL option is unneccessary.

  mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test.* TO 'root'@'localhost'
      -> IDENTIFIED BY 'goodsecret'
      -> REQUIRE ISSUER '/C=FI/ST=Some-State/L=Helsinki/
         O=MySQL Finland AB/CN=Tonu Samuel/[email protected]';
  

  Note that the ISSUER value should be entered as a single string.
• REQUIRE SUBJECT 'subject' places the restriction on connection attempts that the client must present a valid X509 certificate with subject 'subject' in it. If the client presents a certificate that is valid but has a different subject, the server rejects the connection.

  mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test.* TO 'root'@'localhost'
      -> IDENTIFIED BY 'goodsecret'
      -> REQUIRE SUBJECT '/C=EE/ST=Some-State/L=Tallinn/
         O=MySQL demo client certificate/
         CN=Tonu Samuel/[email protected]';
  

  Note that the SUBJECT value should be entered as a single string.
• REQUIRE CIPHER 'cipher' is needed to ensure that strong enough ciphers and key lengths will be used. SSL itself can be weak if old algorithms with short encryption keys are used. Using this option, you can ask for some exact cipher method to allow a connection.

  mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test.* TO 'root'@'localhost'
      -> IDENTIFIED BY 'goodsecret'
      -> REQUIRE CIPHER 'EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA';
  

The SUBJECT, ISSUER, and CIPHER options can be combined in the REQUIRE clause like this:

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test.* TO 'root'@'localhost'
    -> IDENTIFIED BY 'goodsecret'
    -> REQUIRE SUBJECT '/C=EE/ST=Some-State/L=Tallinn/
       O=MySQL demo client certificate/
       CN=Tonu Samuel/[email protected]'
    -> AND ISSUER '/C=FI/ST=Some-State/L=Helsinki/
       O=MySQL Finland AB/CN=Tonu Samuel/[email protected]'
    -> AND CIPHER 'EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA';

Note that the SUBJECT and ISSUER values each should be entered as a single string.

Starting from MySQL 4.0.4, the AND keyword is optional between REQUIRE options.

The order of the options does not matter, but no option can be specified twice.

When mysqld starts, all privileges are read into memory. Database, table, and column privileges take effect at once, and user-level privileges take effect the next time the user connects. Modifications to the grant tables that you perform using GRANT or REVOKE are noticed by the server immediately. If you modify the grant tables manually (using INSERT, UPDATE, and so on), you should execute a FLUSH PRIVILEGES statement or run mysqladmin flush-privileges to tell the server to reload the grant tables. See section 5.5.7 When Privilege Changes Take Effect.

Note that if you are using table or column privileges for even one user, the server examines table and column privileges for all users and this slows down MySQL a bit. Similarly, if you limit the number of queries, updates, or connections for any users, the server must monitor these values.

The biggest differences between the standard SQL and MySQL versions of GRANT are:

• In MySQL, privileges are associated with a username/hostname combination and not with only a username.
• Standard SQL doesn't have global or database-level privileges, nor does it support all the privilege types that MySQL supports.
• MySQL doesn't support the standard SQL TRIGGER or UNDER privileges.
• Standard SQL privileges are structured in a hierarchical manner. If you remove a user, all privileges the user has been granted are revoked. In MySQL, the granted privileges are not automatically revoked; you must revoke them yourself.
• With standard SQL, when you drop a table, all privileges for the table are revoked. With standard SQL, when you revoke a privilege, all privileges that were granted based on the privilege are also revoked. In MySQL, privileges can be dropped only with explicit REVOKE statements or by manipulating the MySQL grant tables.
• In MySQL, if you have the INSERT privilege on only some of the columns in a table, you can execute INSERT statements on the table; the columns for which you don't have the INSERT privilege will be set to their default values. Standard SQL requires you to have the INSERT privilege on all columns.

13.5.1.3 SET PASSWORD Syntax

SET PASSWORD = PASSWORD('some password')
SET PASSWORD FOR user = PASSWORD('some password')

The SET PASSWORD statement assigns a password to an existing MySQL user account.

The first syntax sets the password for the current user. Any client that has connected to the server using a non-anonymous account can change the password for that account.

The second syntax sets the password for a specific account on the current server host. Only clients with access to the mysql database can do this. The user value should be given in user_name@host_name format, where user_name and host_name are exactly as they are listed in the User and Host columns of the mysql.user table entry. For example, if you had an entry with User and Host column values of 'bob' and '%.loc.gov', you would write the statement like this:

Starting from MySQL 4.1 you can check your current authentication user@host entry by executing SELECT current_user()..

mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'bob'@'%.loc.gov' = PASSWORD('newpass');

That is equivalent to the following statements:

mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('newpass')
    -> WHERE User='bob' AND Host='%.loc.gov';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Note: If you are connecting to a MySQL 4.1 or later server using a pre-4.1 client program, do not use the above UPDATE statement without reading section 5.5.9 Password Hashing in MySQL 4.1 first. The password format changed in MySQL 4.1, and under certain circumstances it is possible that if you change your password, you might not be able to connect to the server afterward.

13.5.2 Table Maintenance Statements

13.5.2.1 ANALYZE TABLE Syntax

ANALYZE [LOCAL | NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG] TABLE tbl_name [, tbl_name] ...

This statement analyzes and stores the key distribution for a table. During the analysis, the table is locked with a read lock. This works on MyISAM and BDB tables and (as of MySQL 4.0.13) InnoDB tables. For MyISAM tables, this statement is equivalent to using myisamchk -a.

MySQL uses the stored key distribution to decide the order in which tables should be joined when you perform a join on something other than a constant.

The statement returns a table with the following columns:

You can check the stored key distribution with the SHOW INDEX statement. See section 13.5.4.11 SHOW INDEX Syntax.

If the table hasn't changed since the last ANALYZE TABLE statement, the table will not be analyzed again.

Before MySQL 4.1.1, ANALYZE TABLE statements are not written to the binary log. As of MySQL 4.1.1, they are written to the binary log unless the optional NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG keyword (or its alias LOCAL) is used.

13.5.2.2 BACKUP TABLE Syntax

BACKUP TABLE tbl_name [, tbl_name] ... TO '/path/to/backup/directory'

Note: This statement is deprecated. We are working on a better replacement for it that will provide online backup capabilities. In the meantime, the mysqlhotcopy script can be used instead.

BACKUP TABLE copies to the backup directory the minimum number of table files needed to restore the table, after flushing any buffered changes to disk. The statement works only for MyISAM tables. It copies the `.frm' definition and `.MYD' data files. The `.MYI' index file can be rebuilt from those two files. The directory should be specified as a full pathname.

Before using this statement, please see section 5.7.1 Database Backups.

During the backup, a read lock is held for each table, one at time, as they are being backed up. If you want to back up several tables as a snapshot (preventing any of them from being changed during the backup operation), you must first issue a LOCK TABLES statement to obtain a read lock for every table in the group.

The statement returns a table with the following columns:

BACKUP TABLE is available in MySQL 3.23.25 and later.

13.5.2.3 CHECK TABLE Syntax

CHECK TABLE tbl_name [, tbl_name] ... [option] ...

option = {QUICK | FAST | MEDIUM | EXTENDED | CHANGED}

Checks a table or tables for errors. CHECK TABLE works for MyISAM and InnoDB tables. For MyISAM tables, the key statistics are updated.

As of MySQL 5.0.2, CHECK TABLE also can check views for problems, such as tables that are referenced in the view definition that no longer exist.

The CHECK TABLE statement returns a table with the following columns:

Note that the statement might produce many rows of information for each checked table. The last row will have a Msg_type value of status and the Msg_text normally should be OK. If you don't get OK, or Table is already up to date you should normally run a repair of the table. See section 5.7.2 Table Maintenance and Crash Recovery. Table is already up to date means that the storage engine for the table indicated that there was no need to check the table.

The different check options that can be given are shown in the following table. These options apply only to checking MyISAM tables and are ignored for InnoDB tables and views.

If none of the options QUICK, MEDIUM, or EXTENDED are specified, the default check type for dynamic-format MyISAM tables is MEDIUM. This is the same thing as running myisamchk --medium-check tbl_name on the table. The default check type also is MEDIUM for static-format MyISAM tables, unless CHANGED or FAST is specified. In that case, the default is QUICK. The row scan is skipped for CHANGED and FAST because the rows are very seldom corrupted.

You can combine check options, as in the following example, which does a quick check on the table to see whether it was closed properly:

CHECK TABLE test_table FAST QUICK;

Note: In some cases, CHECK TABLE will change the table! This happens if the table is marked as ``corrupted'' or ``not closed properly'' but CHECK TABLE doesn't find any problems in the table. In this case, CHECK TABLE marks the table as okay.

If a table is corrupted, it's most likely that the problem is in the indexes and not in the data part. All of the preceding check types check the indexes thoroughly and should thus find most errors.

If you just want to check a table that you assume is okay, you should use no check options or the QUICK option. The latter should be used when you are in a hurry and can take the very small risk that QUICK doesn't find an error in the data file. (In most cases, MySQL should find, under normal usage, any error in the data file. If this happens, the table is marked as ``corrupted'' and cannot be used until it's repaired.)

FAST and CHANGED are mostly intended to be used from a script (for example, to be executed from cron) if you want to check your table from time to time. In most cases, FAST is to be preferred over CHANGED. (The only case when it isn't preferred is when you suspect that you have found a bug in the MyISAM code.)

EXTENDED is to be used only after you have run a normal check but still get strange errors from a table when MySQL tries to update a row or find a row by key. (This is very unlikely if a normal check has succeeded!)

Some problems reported by CHECK TABLE can't be corrected automatically:

• Found row where the auto_increment column has the value 0. This means that you have a row in the table where the AUTO_INCREMENT index column contains the value 0. (It's possible to create a row where the AUTO_INCREMENT column is 0 by explicitly setting the column to 0 with an UPDATE statement.) This isn't an error in itself, but could cause trouble if you decide to dump the table and restore it or do an ALTER TABLE on the table. In this case, the AUTO_INCREMENT column will change value according to the rules of AUTO_INCREMENT columns, which could cause problems such as a duplicate-key error. To get rid of the warning, just execute an UPDATE statement to set the column to some other value than 0.

13.5.2.4 CHECKSUM TABLE Syntax

CHECKSUM TABLE tbl_name [, tbl_name] ... [ QUICK | EXTENDED ]

Reports a table checksum.

If QUICK is specified, the live table checksum is reported if it is available, or NULL otherwise. This is very fast. A live checksum is enabled by specifying the CHECKSUM=1 table option, currently supported only for MyISAM tables. See section 13.2.6 CREATE TABLE Syntax.

In EXTENDED mode the whole table is read row by row and the checksum is calculated. This can be very slow for large tables.

By default, if neither QUICK nor EXTENDED is specified, MySQL returns a live checksum if the table storage engine supports it and scans the table otherwise.

This statement is implemented in MySQL 4.1.1.

13.5.2.5 OPTIMIZE TABLE Syntax

OPTIMIZE [LOCAL | NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG] TABLE tbl_name [, tbl_name] ...

OPTIMIZE TABLE should be used if you have deleted a large part of a table or if you have made many changes to a table with variable-length rows (tables that have VARCHAR, BLOB, or TEXT columns). Deleted records are maintained in a linked list and subsequent INSERT operations reuse old record positions. You can use OPTIMIZE TABLE to reclaim the unused space and to defragment the data file.

In most setups, you need not run OPTIMIZE TABLE at all. Even if you do a lot of updates to variable-length rows, it's not likely that you need to do this more than once a week or month and only on certain tables.

For the moment, OPTIMIZE TABLE works only on MyISAM, BDB and InnoDB tables. For BDB tables, OPTIMIZE TABLE is currently mapped to ANALYZE TABLE. It was also the case for InnoDB tables before MySQL 4.1.3; starting from this version it is mapped to ALTER TABLE. See section 13.5.2.1 ANALYZE TABLE Syntax.

You can get OPTIMIZE TABLE to work on other table types by starting mysqld with the --skip-new or --safe-mode option; in this case, OPTIMIZE TABLE is just mapped to ALTER TABLE.

OPTIMIZE TABLE works as follows:

1. If the table has deleted or split rows, repair the table.
2. If the index pages are not sorted, sort them.
3. If the statistics are not up to date (and the repair couldn't be done by sorting the index), update them.

Note that MySQL locks the table during the time OPTIMIZE TABLE is running.

Before MySQL 4.1.1, OPTIMIZE TABLE statements are not written to the binary log. As of MySQL 4.1.1, they are written to the binary log unless the optional NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG keyword (or its alias LOCAL) is used.

13.5.2.6 REPAIR TABLE Syntax

REPAIR [LOCAL | NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG] TABLE
    tbl_name [, tbl_name] ... [QUICK] [EXTENDED] [USE_FRM]

REPAIR TABLE repairs a possibly corrupted table. By default, it has the same effect as myisamchk --recover tbl_name. REPAIR TABLE works only on MyISAM tables.

Normally you should never have to run this statement. However, if disaster strikes, REPAIR TABLE is very likely to get back all your data from a MyISAM table. If your tables become corrupted often, you should try to find the reason for it, to eliminate the need to use REPAIR TABLE. See section A.4.2 What to Do If MySQL Keeps Crashing. See section 14.1.4 MyISAM Table Problems.

The statement returns a table with the following columns:

The REPAIR TABLE statement might produce many rows of information for each repaired table. The last row will have a Msg_type value of status and Msg_test normally should be OK. If you don't get OK, you should try repairing the table with myisamchk --safe-recover, because REPAIR TABLE does not yet implement all the options of myisamchk. We plan to make it more flexible in the future.

If QUICK is given, REPAIR TABLE tries to repair only the index tree. This type of repair is like that done by myisamchk --recover --quick.

If you use EXTENDED, MySQL creates the index row by row instead of creating one index at a time with sorting. (Before MySQL 4.1, this might be better than sorting on fixed-length keys if you have long CHAR keys that compress very well.) This type of repair is like that done by myisamchk --safe-recover.

As of MySQL 4.0.2, there is a USE_FRM mode for REPAIR TABLE. Use it if the `.MYI' index file is missing or if its header is corrupted. In this mode, MySQL will re-create the `.MYI' file using information from the `.frm' file. This kind of repair cannot be done with myisamchk. Note: Use this mode only if you cannot use regular REPAIR modes. `.MYI' header contains important table metadata (in particular, current AUTO_INCREMENT value and Delete link) that will be lost in REPAIR ... USE_FRM. Don't use USE_FRM if the table is compressed, as this information is also stored in `.MYI' file.

Before MySQL 4.1.1, REPAIR TABLE statements are not written to the binary log. As of MySQL 4.1.1, they are written to the binary log unless the optional NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG keyword (or its alias LOCAL) is used.

Warning: If the server dies during a REPAIR TABLE operation, it's essential after restarting it that you immediately execute another REPAIR TABLE statement for the table before performing any other operations on it. (It's always good to start by making a backup.) In the worst case, you might have a new clean index file without information about the data file, and then the next operation you perform could overwrite the data file. This is an unlikely, but possible scenario.

13.5.2.7 RESTORE TABLE Syntax

RESTORE TABLE tbl_name [, tbl_name] ... FROM '/path/to/backup/directory'

Restores the table or tables from a backup that was made with BACKUP TABLE. Existing tables will not be overwritten; if you try to restore over an existing table, you will get an error. Just as BACKUP TABLE, RESTORE TABLE currently works only for MyISAM tables. The directory should be specified as a full pathname.

The backup for each table consists of its `.frm' format file and `.MYD' data file. The restore operation restores those files, then uses them to rebuild the `.MYI' index file. Restoring takes longer than backing up due to the need to rebuild the indexes. The more indexes the table has, the longer it will take.

The statement returns a table with the following columns:

13.5.3 SET Syntax

SET variable_assignment [, variable_assignment] ...

variable_assignment:
      user_var_name = expr
    | [GLOBAL | SESSION] system_var_name = expr
    | @@[global. | session.]system_var_name = expr

SET sets different types of variables that affect the operation of the server or your client. It can be used to assign values to user variables or system variables.

The SET PASSWORD statement for assigning account passwords is described in See section 13.5.1.3 SET PASSWORD Syntax.

In MySQL 4.0.3, we added the GLOBAL and SESSION options and allowed most important system variables to be changed dynamically at runtime. The system variables that you can set at runtime are described in section 5.2.3.1 Dynamic System Variables.

In older versions of MySQL, SET OPTION is used instead of SET, but this is now deprecated; just leave out the word OPTION.

The following example show the different syntaxes you can use to set variables.

A user variable is written as @var_name and can be set as follows:

SET @var_name = expr;

Further information about user variables is given in section 9.3 User Variables.

System variables can be referred to in SET statements as var_name. The name optionally can be preceded by GLOBAL or @@global. to indicate explicitly that the variable is a global variable, or by SESSION, @@session., or @@ to indicate that it is a session variable. LOCAL and @@local. are synonyms for SESSION and @@session.. If no modifier is present, SET sets the session variable.

The @@var_name syntax for system variables is supported to make MySQL syntax compatible with some other database systems.

If you set several system variables in the same statement, the last used GLOBAL or SESSION option is used for variables that have no mode specified.

SET sort_buffer_size=10000;
SET @@local.sort_buffer_size=10000;
SET GLOBAL sort_buffer_size=1000000, SESSION sort_buffer_size=1000000;
SET @@sort_buffer_size=1000000;
SET @@global.sort_buffer_size=1000000, @@local.sort_buffer_size=1000000;

If you set a system variable using SESSION (the default), the value remains in effect until the current session ends or until you set the variable to a different value. If you set a system variable using GLOBAL, which requires the SUPER privilege, the value is remembered and used for new connections until the server restarts. If you want to make a variable setting permanent, you should put it in an option file. See section 4.3.2 Using Option Files.

To prevent incorrect usage, MySQL produces an error if you use SET GLOBAL with a variable that can only be used with SET SESSION or if you do not specify GLOBAL when setting a global variable.

If you want to set a SESSION variable to the GLOBAL value or a GLOBAL value to the compiled-in MySQL default value, you can set it to DEFAULT. For example, the following two statements are identical in setting the session value of max_join_size to the global value:

SET max_join_size=DEFAULT;
SET @@session.max_join_size=@@global.max_join_size;

You can get a list of most system variables with SHOW VARIABLES. See section 13.5.4.19 SHOW VARIABLES Syntax. To get a specific variable name or list of names that match a pattern, use a LIKE clause:

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'max_join_size';
SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE 'max_join_size';

You can also get the value for a specific value by using the @@[global.|local.]var_name syntax with SELECT:

SELECT @@max_join_size, @@global.max_join_size;

When you retrieve a variable with SELECT @@var_name (that is, you do not specify global., session., or local.), MySQL returns the SESSION value if it exists and the GLOBAL value otherwise.

The following list describes variables that have non-standard syntax or that are not described in the list of system variables that is found in section 5.2.3 Server System Variables. Although these variables are not displayed by SHOW VARIABLES, you can obtain their values with SELECT (with the exception of CHARACTER SET and SET NAMES). For example:

mysql> SELECT @@AUTOCOMMIT;
+--------------+
| @@autocommit |
+--------------+
|            1 |
+--------------+

AUTOCOMMIT = {0 | 1}

Set the autocommit mode. If set to 1, all changes to a table take effect immediately. If set to 0, you have to use COMMIT to accept a transaction or ROLLBACK to cancel it. If you change AUTOCOMMIT mode from 0 to 1, MySQL performs an automatic COMMIT of any open transaction. Another way to begin a transaction is to use a START TRANSACTION or BEGIN statement. See section 13.4.1 START TRANSACTION, COMMIT, and ROLLBACK Syntax.

BIG_TABLES = {0 | 1}

If set to 1, all temporary tables are stored on disk rather than in memory. This is a little slower, but the error The table tbl_name is full will not occur for SELECT operations that require a large temporary table. The default value for a new connection is 0 (use in-memory temporary tables). As of MySQL 4.0, you should normally never need to set this variable, because MySQL automatically converts in-memory tables to disk-based tables as necessary. This variable previously was named SQL_BIG_TABLES.

CHARACTER SET {charset_name | DEFAULT}

This maps all strings from and to the client with the given mapping. Before MySQL 4.1, the only allowable value for charset_name is cp1251_koi8, but you can add new mappings by editing the `sql/convert.cc' file in the MySQL source distribution. As of MySQL 4.1.1, SET CHARACTER SET sets three session system variables: character_set_client and character_set_results are set to the given character set, and character_set_connection to the value of character_set_database. The default mapping can be restored by using a value of DEFAULT. Note that the syntax for SET CHARACTER SET differs from that for setting most other options.

FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = {0 | 1}

If set to 1 (the default), foreign key constraints for InnoDB tables are checked. If set to 0, they are ignored. Disabling foreign key checking can be useful for reloading InnoDB tables in an order different than that required by their parent/child relationships. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.52. See section 15.7.4 FOREIGN KEY Constraints.

IDENTITY = value

The variable is a synonym for the LAST_INSERT_ID variable. It exists for compatibility with other databases. As of MySQL 3.23.25, you can read its value with SELECT @@IDENTITY. As of MySQL 4.0.3, you can also set its value with SET IDENTITY.

INSERT_ID = value

Set the value to be used by the following INSERT or ALTER TABLE statement when inserting an AUTO_INCREMENT value. This is mainly used with the binary log.

LAST_INSERT_ID = value

Set the value to be returned from LAST_INSERT_ID(). This is stored in the binary log when you use LAST_INSERT_ID() in a statement that updates a table. Setting this variable does not update theh value returned by the mysql_insert_id() C API function.

NAMES {'charset_name' | DEFAULT}

SET NAMES sets the three session system variables character_set_client, character_set_connection, and character_set_results to the given character set. The default mapping can be restored by using a value of DEFAULT. Note that the syntax for SET NAMES differs from that for setting most other options. This statement is available as of MySQL 4.1.0.

SQL_AUTO_IS_NULL = {0 | 1}

If set to 1 (the default), you can find the last inserted row for a table that contains an AUTO_INCREMENT column by using the following construct:

WHERE auto_increment_column IS NULL

This behavior is used by some ODBC programs, such as Access. SQL_AUTO_IS_NULL was added in MySQL 3.23.52.

SQL_BIG_SELECTS = {0 | 1}

If set to 0, MySQL aborts SELECT statements that probably will take a very long time (that is, statements for which the optimizer estimates that the number of examined rows will exceed the value of max_join_size). This is useful when an inadvisable WHERE statement has been issued. The default value for a new connection is 1, which allows all SELECT statements. If you set the max_join_size system variable to a value other than DEFAULT, SQL_BIG_SELECTS will be set to 0.

SQL_BUFFER_RESULT = {0 | 1}

SQL_BUFFER_RESULT forces results from SELECT statements to be put into temporary tables. This helps MySQL free the table locks early and can be beneficial in cases where it takes a long time to send results to the client. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.13.

SQL_LOG_BIN = {0 | 1}

If set to 0, no logging is done to the binary log for the client. The client must have the SUPER privilege to set this option. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.16.

SQL_LOG_OFF = {0 | 1}

If set to 1, no logging is done to the general query log for this client. The client must have the SUPER privilege to set this option.

SQL_LOG_UPDATE = {0 | 1}

If set to 0, no logging is done to the update log for the client. The client must have the SUPER privilege to set this option. This variable was added in MySQL 3.22.5. Starting from MySQL 5.0.0, it is deprecated and is mapped to SQL_LOG_BIN (see section D.1.4 Changes in release 5.0.0 (22 Dec 2003: Alpha)).

SQL_QUOTE_SHOW_CREATE = {0 | 1}

If set to 1, SHOW CREATE TABLE quotes table and column names. If set to 0, quoting is disabled. This option is enabled by default so that replication will work for tables with table and column names that require quoting. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.26. section 13.5.4.5 SHOW CREATE TABLE Syntax.

SQL_SAFE_UPDATES = {0 | 1}

If set to 1, MySQL aborts UPDATE or DELETE statements that do not use a key in the WHERE clause or a LIMIT clause. This makes it possible to catch UPDATE or DELETE statements where keys are not used properly and that would probably change or delete a large number of rows. This variable was added in MySQL 3.22.32.

SQL_SELECT_LIMIT = {value | DEFAULT}

The maximum number of records to return from SELECT statements. The default value for a new connection is ``unlimited.'' If you have changed the limit, the default value can be restored by using a SQL_SELECT_LIMIT value of DEFAULT. If a SELECT has a LIMIT clause, the LIMIT takes precedence over the value of SQL_SELECT_LIMIT.

SQL_WARNINGS = {0 | 1}

This variable controls whether single-row INSERT statements produce an information string if warnings occur. The default is 0. Set the value to 1 to produce an information string. This variable was added in MySQL 3.22.11.

TIMESTAMP = {timestamp_value | DEFAULT}

Set the time for this client. This is used to get the original timestamp if you use the binary log to restore rows. timestamp_value should be a Unix epoch timestamp, not a MySQL timestamp.

UNIQUE_CHECKS = {0 | 1}

If set to 1 (the default), uniqueness checks for secondary indexes in InnoDB tables are performed. If set to 0, uniqueness checks are not done for index entries inserted into InnoDB's insert buffer. If you know for certain that your data does not contain uniqueness violations, you can set this to 0 to speed up large table imports to InnoDB. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.52.

13.5.4 SHOW Syntax

SHOW has many forms that provide information about databases, tables, columns, or status information about the server. This section describes those following:

SHOW [FULL] COLUMNS FROM tbl_name [FROM db_name] [LIKE 'pattern']
SHOW CREATE DATABASE db_name
SHOW CREATE TABLE tbl_name
SHOW DATABASES [LIKE 'pattern']
SHOW [STORAGE] ENGINES
SHOW ERRORS [LIMIT [offset,] row_count]
SHOW GRANTS FOR user
SHOW INDEX FROM tbl_name [FROM db_name]
SHOW INNODB STATUS
SHOW [BDB] LOGS
SHOW PRIVILEGES
SHOW [FULL] PROCESSLIST
SHOW STATUS [LIKE 'pattern']
SHOW TABLE STATUS [FROM db_name] [LIKE 'pattern']
SHOW [OPEN] TABLES [FROM db_name] [LIKE 'pattern']
SHOW [GLOBAL | SESSION] VARIABLES [LIKE 'pattern']
SHOW WARNINGS [LIMIT [offset,] row_count]

If the syntax for a given SHOW statement includes a LIKE 'pattern' part, 'pattern' is a string that can contain the SQL `%' and `_' wildcard characters. The pattern is useful for restricting statement output to matching values.

Note that there are other forms of these statements described elsewhere:

• The SHOW statement has forms that provide information about replication master and slave servers:

  SHOW BINLOG EVENTS
  SHOW MASTER LOGS
  SHOW MASTER STATUS
  SHOW SLAVE HOSTS
  SHOW SLAVE STATUS
  

  These forms of SHOW are described in section 13.6 Replication Statements.

13.5.4.1 SHOW CHARACTER SET Syntax

SHOW CHARACTER SET [LIKE 'pattern']

The SHOW CHARACTER SET statement shows all available character sets. It takes an optional LIKE clause that indicates which character set names to match. For example:

mysql> SHOW CHARACTER SET LIKE 'latin%';
+---------+-----------------------------+-------------------+--------+
| Charset | Description                 | Default collation | Maxlen |
+---------+-----------------------------+-------------------+--------+
| latin1  | ISO 8859-1 West European    | latin1_swedish_ci |      1 |
| latin2  | ISO 8859-2 Central European | latin2_general_ci |      1 |
| latin5  | ISO 8859-9 Turkish          | latin5_turkish_ci |      1 |
| latin7  | ISO 8859-13 Baltic          | latin7_general_ci |      1 |
+---------+-----------------------------+-------------------+--------+

The Maxlen column shows the maximum number of bytes used to store one character.

SHOW CHARACTER SET is available as of MySQL 4.1.0.

13.5.4.2 SHOW COLLATION Syntax

SHOW COLLATION [LIKE 'pattern']

The output from SHOW COLLATION includes all available character sets. It takes an optional LIKE clause that indicates which collation names to match. For example:

mysql> SHOW COLLATION LIKE 'latin1%';
+-------------------+---------+----+---------+----------+---------+
| Collation         | Charset | Id | Default | Compiled | Sortlen |
+-------------------+---------+----+---------+----------+---------+
| latin1_german1_ci | latin1  |  5 |         |          |       0 |
| latin1_swedish_ci | latin1  |  8 | Yes     | Yes      |       0 |
| latin1_danish_ci  | latin1  | 15 |         |          |       0 |
| latin1_german2_ci | latin1  | 31 |         | Yes      |       2 |
| latin1_bin        | latin1  | 47 |         | Yes      |       0 |
| latin1_general_ci | latin1  | 48 |         |          |       0 |
| latin1_general_cs | latin1  | 49 |         |          |       0 |
| latin1_spanish_ci | latin1  | 94 |         |          |       0 |
+-------------------+---------+----+---------+----------+---------+

The Default column indicates whether a collation is the default for its character set. Compiled indicates whether the character set is compiled into the server. Sortlen is related to the amount of memory required to sort strings expressed in the character set.

SHOW COLLATION is available as of MySQL 4.1.0.

13.5.4.3 SHOW COLUMNS Syntax

SHOW [FULL] COLUMNS FROM tbl_name [FROM db_name] [LIKE 'pattern']

SHOW COLUMNS lists the columns in a given table. If the column types differ from what you expect them to be based on your CREATE TABLE statement, note that MySQL sometimes changes column types when you create or alter a table. The conditions for which this occurs are described in section 13.2.6.1 Silent Column Specification Changes.

The FULL keyword can be used from MySQL 3.23.32 on. It causes the output to include the privileges you have for each column. As of MySQL 4.1, FULL also causes any per-column comments to be displayed.

You can use db_name.tbl_name as an alternative to the tbl_name FROM db_name syntax. These two statements are equivalent:

mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM mytable FROM mydb;
mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM mydb.mytable;

SHOW FIELDS is a synonym for SHOW COLUMNS. You can also list a table's columns with the mysqlshow db_name tbl_name command.

The DESCRIBE statement provides information similar to SHOW COLUMNS. See section 13.3.1 DESCRIBE Syntax (Get Information About Columns).

13.5.4.4 SHOW CREATE DATABASE Syntax

SHOW CREATE {DATABASE | SCHEMA} db_name

Shows a CREATE DATABASE statement that will create the given database. It was added in MySQL 4.1. SHOW CREATE SCHEMA can be used as of MySQL 5.0.2.

mysql> SHOW CREATE DATABASE test\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Database: test
Create Database: CREATE DATABASE `test`
                 /*!40100 DEFAULT CHARACTER SET latin1 */

13.5.4.5 SHOW CREATE TABLE Syntax

SHOW CREATE TABLE tbl_name

Shows a CREATE TABLE statement that will create the given table. It was added in MySQL 3.23.20.

mysql> SHOW CREATE TABLE t\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: t
Create Table: CREATE TABLE t (
  id INT(11) default NULL auto_increment,
  s char(60) default NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
) TYPE=MyISAM

SHOW CREATE TABLE quotes table and column names according to the value of the SQL_QUOTE_SHOW_CREATE option. section 13.5.3 SET Syntax.

13.5.4.6 SHOW CREATE VIEW Syntax

SHOW CREATE VIEW view_name

This statement shows a CREATE VIEW statement that will create the given view.

mysql> SHOW CREATE VIEW v;
+-------+----------------------------------------------------+
| Table | Create Table                                       |
+-------+----------------------------------------------------+
| v     | CREATE VIEW `test`.`v` AS select 1 AS `a`,2 AS `b` |
+-------+----------------------------------------------------+

This statement was added in MySQL 5.0.1.

13.5.4.7 SHOW DATABASES Syntax

SHOW {DATABASES | SCHEMAS} [LIKE 'pattern']

SHOW DATABASES lists the databases on the MySQL server host. You can also get this list using the mysqlshow command. As of MySQL 4.0.2, you will see only those databases for which you have some kind of privilege, if you don't have the global SHOW DATABASES privilege.

If the server was started with the --skip-show-database option, you cannot use this statement at all unless you have the SHOW DATABASES privilege.

SHOW SCHEMAS can be used as of MySQL 5.0.2

13.5.4.8 SHOW ENGINES Syntax

SHOW [STORAGE] ENGINES

SHOW ENGINES shows you status information about the storage engines. This is particularly useful for checking whether a storage engine is supported, or to see what the default engine is. This statement is implemented in MySQL 4.1.2. SHOW TABLE TYPES is a deprecated synonym.

mysql> SHOW ENGINES\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
 Engine: MyISAM
Support: DEFAULT
Comment: Default engine as of MySQL 3.23 with great performance
*************************** 2. row ***************************
 Engine: HEAP
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for MEMORY
*************************** 3. row ***************************
 Engine: MEMORY
Support: YES
Comment: Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables
*************************** 4. row ***************************
 Engine: MERGE
Support: YES
Comment: Collection of identical MyISAM tables
*************************** 5. row ***************************
 Engine: MRG_MYISAM
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for MERGE
*************************** 6. row ***************************
 Engine: ISAM
Support: NO
Comment: Obsolete storage engine, now replaced by MyISAM
*************************** 7. row ***************************
 Engine: MRG_ISAM
Support: NO
Comment: Obsolete storage engine, now replaced by MERGE
*************************** 8. row ***************************
 Engine: InnoDB
Support: YES
Comment: Supports transactions, row-level locking, and foreign keys
*************************** 9. row ***************************
 Engine: INNOBASE
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for INNODB
*************************** 10. row ***************************
 Engine: BDB
Support: YES
Comment: Supports transactions and page-level locking
*************************** 11. row ***************************
 Engine: BERKELEYDB
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for BDB
*************************** 12. row ***************************
 Engine: NDBCLUSTER
Support: YES
Comment: Clustered, fault-tolerant, memory-based tables
*************************** 13. row ***************************
 Engine: NDB
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for NDBCLUSTER
*************************** 14. row ***************************
 Engine: EXAMPLE
Support: YES
Comment: Example storage engine
*************************** 15. row ***************************
 Engine: ARCHIVE
Support: YES
Comment: Archive storage engine
*************************** 16. row ***************************
 Engine: CSV
Support: YES
Comment: CSV storage engine
*************************** 17. row ***************************
 Engine: FEDERATED
Support: YES
Comment: Federated MySQL storage engine

A Support value indicates whether the particular storage engine is supported, and which is the default engine. For example, if the server is started with the --default-table-type=InnoDB option, then the Support value for the InnoDB row will have the value DEFAULT.

13.5.4.9 SHOW ERRORS Syntax

SHOW ERRORS [LIMIT [offset,] row_count]
SHOW COUNT(*) ERRORS

This statement is similar to SHOW WARNINGS, except that instead of displaying errors, warnings, and notes, it displays only errors. SHOW ERRORS is available as of MySQL 4.1.0.

The LIMIT clause has the same syntax as for the SELECT statement. See section 13.1.7 SELECT Syntax.

The SHOW COUNT(*) ERRORS statement displays the number of errors. You can also retrieve this number from the error_count variable:

SHOW COUNT(*) ERRORS;
SELECT @@error_count;

For more information, see section 13.5.4.20 SHOW WARNINGS Syntax.

13.5.4.10 SHOW GRANTS Syntax

SHOW GRANTS FOR user

This statement lists the GRANT statements that must be issued to duplicate the privileges for a MySQL user account.

mysql> SHOW GRANTS FOR 'root'@'localhost';
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Grants for root@localhost                                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

As of MySQL 4.1.2, to list privileges for the current session, you can use any of the following statements:

SHOW GRANTS;
SHOW GRANTS FOR CURRENT_USER;
SHOW GRANTS FOR CURRENT_USER();

Before MySQL 4.1.2, you can find out what user the session was authenticated as by selecting the value of the CURRENT_USER() function (new in MySQL 4.0.6). Then use that value in the SHOW GRANTS statement. See section 12.8.3 Information Functions.

SHOW GRANTS is available as of MySQL 3.23.4.

13.5.4.11 SHOW INDEX Syntax

SHOW INDEX FROM tbl_name [FROM db_name]

SHOW INDEX returns table index information in a format that resembles the SQLStatistics call in ODBC.

SHOW INDEX returns the following fields:

Table

The name of the table.

Non_unique

0 if the index can't contain duplicates, 1 if it can.

Key_name

The name of the index.

Seq_in_index

The column sequence number in the index, starting with 1.

Column_name

The column name.

Collation

How the column is sorted in the index. In MySQL, this can have values `A' (Ascending) or NULL (Not sorted).

Cardinality

The number of unique values in the index. This is updated by running ANALYZE TABLE or myisamchk -a. Cardinality is counted based on statistics stored as integers, so it's not necessarily accurate for small tables. The higher the cardinality, the greater the chance that MySQL will use the index when doing joins.

Sub_part

The number of indexed characters if the column is only partly indexed. NULL if the entire column is indexed.

Packed

Indicates how the key is packed. NULL if it is not.

Null

Contains YES if the column may contain NULL, '' if not.

Index_type

The index method used (BTREE, FULLTEXT, HASH, RTREE).

Comment

Various remarks. Before MySQL 4.0.2 when the Index_type column was added, Comment indicates whether an index is FULLTEXT.

The Packed and Comment columns were added in MySQL 3.23.0. The Null and Index_type columns were added in MySQL 4.0.2.

You can use db_name.tbl_name as an alternative to the tbl_name FROM db_name syntax. These two statements are equivalent:

mysql> SHOW INDEX FROM mytable FROM mydb;
mysql> SHOW INDEX FROM mydb.mytable;

SHOW KEYS is a synonym for SHOW INDEX. You can also list a table's indexes with the mysqlshow -k db_name tbl_name command.

13.5.4.12 SHOW INNODB STATUS Syntax

SHOW INNODB STATUS

This statement shows extensive information about the state of the InnoDB storage engine.

13.5.4.13 SHOW LOGS Syntax

SHOW [BDB] LOGS

SHOW LOGS displays status information about existing log files. It was implemented in MySQL 3.23.29. Currently, it displays only information about Berkeley DB log files, so an alias for it (available as of MySQL 4.1.1) is SHOW BDB LOGS.

SHOW LOGS returns the following fields:

File

The full path to the log file.

Type

The log file type (BDB for Berkeley DB log files).

Status

The status of the log file (FREE if the file can be removed, or IN USE if the file is needed by the transaction subsystem)

13.5.4.14 SHOW PRIVILEGES Syntax

SHOW PRIVILEGES

SHOW PRIVILEGES shows the list of system privileges that the underlying MySQL server supports. This statement is implemented as of MySQL 4.1.0.

mysql> SHOW PRIVILEGES\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
Privilege: Select
  Context: Tables
  Comment: To retrieve rows from table
*************************** 2. row ***************************
Privilege: Insert
  Context: Tables
  Comment: To insert data into tables
*************************** 3. row ***************************
Privilege: Update
  Context: Tables
  Comment: To update existing rows 
*************************** 4. row ***************************
Privilege: Delete
  Context: Tables
  Comment: To delete existing rows
*************************** 5. row ***************************
Privilege: Index
  Context: Tables
  Comment: To create or drop indexes
*************************** 6. row ***************************
Privilege: Alter
  Context: Tables
  Comment: To alter the table
*************************** 7. row ***************************
Privilege: Create
  Context: Databases,Tables,Indexes
  Comment: To create new databases and tables
*************************** 8. row ***************************
Privilege: Drop
  Context: Databases,Tables
  Comment: To drop databases and tables
*************************** 9. row ***************************
Privilege: Grant
  Context: Databases,Tables
  Comment: To give to other users those privileges you possess
*************************** 10. row ***************************
Privilege: References
  Context: Databases,Tables
  Comment: To have references on tables
*************************** 11. row ***************************
Privilege: Reload
  Context: Server Admin
  Comment: To reload or refresh tables, logs and privileges
*************************** 12. row ***************************
Privilege: Shutdown
  Context: Server Admin
  Comment: To shutdown the server
*************************** 13. row ***************************
Privilege: Process
  Context: Server Admin
  Comment: To view the plain text of currently executing queries
*************************** 14. row ***************************
Privilege: File
  Context: File access on server
  Comment: To read and write files on the server

13.5.4.15 SHOW PROCESSLIST Syntax

SHOW [FULL] PROCESSLIST

SHOW PROCESSLIST shows you which threads are running. You can also get this information using the mysqladmin processlist statement. If you have the SUPER privilege, you can see all threads. Otherwise, you can see only your own threads (that is, threads associated with the MySQL account that you are using). See section 13.5.5.3 KILL Syntax. If you don't use the FULL keyword, only the first 100 characters of each query are shown.

Starting from MySQL 4.0.12, the statement reports the hostname for TCP/IP connections in host_name:client_port format to make it easier to determine which client is doing what.

This statement is very useful if you get the "too many connections" error message and want to find out what is going on. MySQL reserves one extra connection to be used by accounts that have the SUPER privilege, to ensure that administrators should always be able to connect and check the system (assuming that you are not giving this privilege to all your users).

Some states commonly seen in the output from SHOW PROCESSLIST:

Checking table

The thread is performing (automatic) checking of the table.

Closing tables

Means that the thread is flushing the changed table data to disk and closing the used tables. This should be a fast operation. If not, then you should verify that you don't have a full disk and that the disk is not in very heavy use.

Connect Out

Slave connecting to master.

Copying to tmp table on disk

The temporary result set was larger than tmp_table_size and the thread is now changing the temporary table from in-memory to disk-based format to save memory.

Creating tmp table

The thread is creating a temporary table to hold a part of the result for the query.

deleting from main table

The server is executing the first part of a multiple-table delete and deleting only from the first table.

deleting from reference tables

The server is executing the second part of a multiple-table delete and deleting the matched rows from the other tables.

Flushing tables

The thread is executing FLUSH TABLES and is waiting for all threads to close their tables.

Killed

Someone has sent a kill to the thread and it should abort next time it checks the kill flag. The flag is checked in each major loop in MySQL, but in some cases it might still take a short time for the thread to die. If the thread is locked by some other thread, the kill takes effect as soon as the other thread releases its lock.

Locked

The query is locked by another query.

Sending data

The thread is processing rows for a SELECT statement and also is sending data to the client.

Sorting for group

The thread is doing a sort to satisfy a GROUP BY.

Sorting for order

The thread is doing a sort to satisfy a ORDER BY.

Opening tables

The thread is trying to open a table. This is should be very fast procedure, unless something prevents opening. For example, an ALTER TABLE or a LOCK TABLE statement can prevent opening a table until the statement is finished.

Removing duplicates

The query was using SELECT DISTINCT in such a way that MySQL couldn't optimize away the distinct operation at an early stage. Because of this, MySQL requires an extra stage to remove all duplicated rows before sending the result to the client.

Reopen table

The thread got a lock for the table, but noticed after getting the lock that the underlying table structure changed. It has freed the lock, closed the table, and is now trying to reopen it.

Repair by sorting

The repair code is using sorting to create indexes.

Repair with keycache

The repair code is using creating keys one by one through the key cache. This is much slower than Repair by sorting.

Searching rows for update

The thread is doing a first phase to find all matching rows before updating them. This has to be done if the UPDATE is changing the index that is used to find the involved rows.

Sleeping

The thread is waiting for the client to send a new statement to it.

System lock

The thread is waiting to get an external system lock for the table. If you are not using multiple mysqld servers that are accessing the same tables, you can disable system locks with the --skip-external-locking option.

Upgrading lock

The INSERT DELAYED handler is trying to get a lock for the table to insert rows.

Updating

The thread is searching for rows to update and updating them.

User Lock

The thread is waiting on a GET_LOCK().

Waiting for tables

The thread got a notification that the underlying structure for a table has changed and it needs to reopen the table to get the new structure. However, to be able to reopen the table, it must wait until all other threads have closed the table in question. This notification happens if another thread has used FLUSH TABLES or one of the following statements on the table in question: FLUSH TABLES tbl_name, ALTER TABLE, RENAME TABLE, REPAIR TABLE, ANALYZE TABLE, or OPTIMIZE TABLE.

waiting for handler insert

The INSERT DELAYED handler has processed all pending inserts and is waiting for new ones.

Most states correspond to very quick operations. If a thread stays in any of these states for many seconds, there might be a problem that needs to be investigated.

There are some other states that are not mentioned in the preceding list, but many of them are useful only for finding bugs in the server.

13.5.4.16 SHOW STATUS Syntax

SHOW STATUS [LIKE 'pattern']

SHOW STATUS provides server status information. This information also can be obtained using the mysqladmin extended-status command.

Partial output is shown here. The list of variables and their values may be different for your server. The meaning of each variable is given in See section 5.2.4 Server Status Variables.

mysql> SHOW STATUS;
+--------------------------+------------+
| Variable_name            | Value      |
+--------------------------+------------+
| Aborted_clients          | 0          |
| Aborted_connects         | 0          |
| Bytes_received           | 155372598  |
| Bytes_sent               | 1176560426 |
| Connections              | 30023      |
| Created_tmp_disk_tables  | 0          |
| Created_tmp_tables       | 8340       |
| Created_tmp_files        | 60         |
...
| Open_tables              | 1          |
| Open_files               | 2          |
| Open_streams             | 0          |
| Opened_tables            | 44600      |
| Questions                | 2026873    |
...
| Table_locks_immediate    | 1920382    |
| Table_locks_waited       | 0          |
| Threads_cached           | 0          |
| Threads_created          | 30022      |
| Threads_connected        | 1          |
| Threads_running          | 1          |
| Uptime                   | 80380      |
+--------------------------+------------+

With a LIKE clause, the statement displays only those variables that match the pattern:

mysql> SHOW STATUS LIKE 'Key%';
+--------------------+----------+
| Variable_name      | Value    |
+--------------------+----------+
| Key_blocks_used    | 14955    |
| Key_read_requests  | 96854827 |
| Key_reads          | 162040   |
| Key_write_requests | 7589728  |
| Key_writes         | 3813196  |
+--------------------+----------+

13.5.4.17 SHOW TABLE STATUS Syntax

SHOW TABLE STATUS [FROM db_name] [LIKE 'pattern']

SHOW TABLE STATUS works likes SHOW TABLE, but provides a lot of information about each table. You can also get this list using the mysqlshow --status db_name command. This statement was added in MySQL 3.23. As of MySQL 5.0.1, it also displays information about views.

SHOW TABLE STATUS returns the following fields:

Name

The name of the table.

Engine

The storage engine for the table. Before MySQL 4.1.2, this value is labeled as Type. See section 14 MySQL Storage Engines and Table Types.

Version

The version number of the table's `.frm' file.

Row_format

The row storage format (Fixed, Dynamic, Compressed).

Rows

The number of rows. Some storage engines, such as MyISAM and ISAM, store the exact count. For other storage engines, such as InnoDB, this value is an approximation, and may vary from the actual value by as much as 40 to 50%. In such cases, use SELECT COUNT(*) to obtain an accurate count.

Avg_row_length

The average row length.

Data_length

The length of the data file.

Max_data_length

The maximum length of the data file. For fixed-row formats, this is the maximum number of rows in the table. For dynamic-row formats, this is the total number of data bytes that can be stored in the table, given the data pointer size used.

Index_length

The length of the index file.

Data_free

The number of allocated but unused bytes.

Auto_increment

The next AUTO_INCREMENT value.

Create_time

When the table was created.

Update_time

When the data file was last updated.

Check_time

When the table was last checked.

Collation

The table's character set and collation. (New in 4.1.1)

Checksum

The live checksum value (if any). (New in 4.1.1)

Create_options

Extra options used with CREATE TABLE.

Comment

The comment used when creating the table (or some information why MySQL couldn't access the table information).

In the table comment, InnoDB tables will report the free space of the tablespace to which the table belongs. For a table located in the shared tablespace, this is the free space of the shared tablespace. If you are using multiple tablespaces and the table has its own tablespace, the freespace is for just that table.

For MEMORY (HEAP) tables, the Data_length, Max_data_length, and Index_length values approximate the actual amount of allocated memory. The allocation algorithm reserves memory in large amounts to reduce the number of allocation operations.

For views, all the fields displayed by SHOW TABLE STATUS are NULL except that Name indicates the view name and Comment says view.

13.5.4.18 SHOW TABLES Syntax

SHOW [FULL|OPEN] TABLES [FROM db_name] [LIKE 'pattern']

SHOW TABLES lists the non-TEMPORARY tables in a given database. You can also get this list using the mysqlshow db_name command.

Before MySQL 5.0.1, the output from SHOW TABLES contains a single column of table names. Beginning with MySQL 5.0.1, also lists the views in the database. As of MySQL 5.0.2, the FULL modifier is supported such that SHOW FULL TABLES displays a second output column. Values in the second column are BASE TABLE for a table and VIEW for a view.

Note: If you have no privileges for a table, the table will not show up in the output from SHOW TABLES or mysqlshow db_name.

SHOW OPEN TABLES lists the tables that are currently open in the table cache. See section 7.4.8 How MySQL Opens and Closes Tables. The Comment field in the output tells how many times the table is cached and in_use. OPEN can be used from MySQL 3.23.33 on.

13.5.4.19 SHOW VARIABLES Syntax

SHOW [GLOBAL | SESSION] VARIABLES [LIKE 'pattern']

SHOW VARIABLES shows the values of some MySQL system variables. This information also can be obtained using the mysqladmin variables command.

The GLOBAL and SESSION options are new in MySQL 4.0.3. With GLOBAL, you will get the values that will be used for new connections to MySQL. With SESSION, you will get the values that are in effect for the current connection. If you use neither option, the default SESSION. LOCAL is a synonym for SESSION.

If the default values are unsuitable, you can set most of these variables using command-line options when mysqld starts or at runtime with the SET statement. See section 5.2.1 mysqld Command-Line Options and section 13.5.3 SET Syntax.

Partial output is shown here. The list of variables and their values may be different for your server. The meaning of each variable is given in See section 5.2.3 Server System Variables. Information about tuning them is provided in section 7.5.2 Tuning Server Parameters.

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES;
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+
| Variable_name                   | Value                        |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------|
| back_log                        | 50                           |
| basedir                         | /usr/local/mysql             |
| bdb_cache_size                  | 8388572                      |
| bdb_log_buffer_size             | 32768                        |
| bdb_home                        | /usr/local/mysql             |
...
| max_connections                 | 100                          |
| max_connect_errors              | 10                           |
| max_delayed_threads             | 20                           |
| max_error_count                 | 64                           |
| max_heap_table_size             | 16777216                     |
| max_join_size                   | 4294967295                   |
| max_relay_log_size              | 0                            |
| max_sort_length                 | 1024                         |
...
| timezone                        | EEST                         |
| tmp_table_size                  | 33554432                     |
| tmpdir                          | /tmp/:/mnt/hd2/tmp/          |
| version                         | 4.0.4-beta                   |
| wait_timeout                    | 28800                        |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+

With a LIKE clause, the statement displays only those variables that match the pattern:

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'have%';
+--------------------+----------+
| Variable_name      | Value    |
+--------------------+----------+
| have_bdb           | YES      |
| have_innodb        | YES      |
| have_isam          | YES      |
| have_raid          | NO       |
| have_symlink       | DISABLED |
| have_openssl       | YES      |
| have_query_cache   | YES      |
+--------------------+----------+

13.5.4.20 SHOW WARNINGS Syntax

SHOW WARNINGS [LIMIT [offset,] row_count]
SHOW COUNT(*) WARNINGS

SHOW WARNINGS shows the error, warning, and note messages that resulted from the last statement that generated messages, or nothing if the last statement that used a table generated no messages. This statement is implemented as of MySQL 4.1.0. A related statement, SHOW ERRORS, shows only the errors. See section 13.5.4.9 SHOW ERRORS Syntax.

The list of messages is reset for each new statement that uses a table.

The SHOW COUNT(*) WARNINGS statement displays the total number of errors, warnings, and notes. You can also retrieve this number from the warning_count variable:

SHOW COUNT(*) WARNINGS;
SELECT @@warning_count;

The value of warning_count might be greater than the number of messages displayed by SHOW WARNINGS if the max_error_count system variable is set low enough that not all messages are stored. An example shown later in this section demonstrates how this can happen.

The LIMIT clause has the same syntax as for the SELECT statement. See section 13.1.7 SELECT Syntax.

The MySQL server sends back the total number of errors, warnings, and notes resulting from the last statement. If you are using the C API, this value can be obtained by calling mysql_warning_count(). See section 21.2.3.59 mysql_warning_count().

Note that the framework for warnings was added in MySQL 4.1.0, at which point many statements did not generate warnings. In 4.1.1, the situation is much improved, with warnings generated for statements such as LOAD DATA INFILE and DML statements such as INSERT, UPDATE, CREATE TABLE, and ALTER TABLE.

The following DROP TABLE statement results in a note:

mysql> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS no_such_table;
mysql> SHOW WARNINGS;
+-------+------+-------------------------------+
| Level | Code | Message                       |
+-------+------+-------------------------------+
| Note  | 1051 | Unknown table 'no_such_table' |
+-------+------+-------------------------------+

Here is a simple example that shows a syntax warning for CREATE TABLE and conversion warnings for INSERT:

mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (a TINYINT NOT NULL, b CHAR(4)) TYPE=MyISAM;
Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
mysql> SHOW WARNINGS\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
  Level: Warning
   Code: 1287
Message: 'TYPE=storage_engine' is deprecated, use
         'ENGINE=storage_engine' instead
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(10,'mysql'),(NULL,'test'),
    -> (300,'Open Source');
Query OK, 3 rows affected, 4 warnings (0.01 sec)
Records: 3  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 4

mysql> SHOW WARNINGS\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
  Level: Warning
   Code: 1265
Message: Data truncated for column 'b' at row 1
*************************** 2. row ***************************
  Level: Warning
   Code: 1263
Message: Data truncated, NULL supplied to NOT NULL column 'a' at row 2
*************************** 3. row ***************************
  Level: Warning
   Code: 1264
Message: Data truncated, out of range for column 'a' at row 3
*************************** 4. row ***************************
  Level: Warning
   Code: 1265
Message: Data truncated for column 'b' at row 3
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

The maximum number of error, warning, and note messages to store is controlled by the max_error_count system variable. By default, its value is 64. To change the number of messages you want stored, change the value of max_error_count. In the following example, the ALTER TABLE statement produces three warning messages, but only one is stored because max_error_count has been set to 1:

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'max_error_count';
+-----------------+-------+
| Variable_name   | Value |
+-----------------+-------+
| max_error_count | 64    |
+-----------------+-------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SET max_error_count=1;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> ALTER TABLE t1 MODIFY b CHAR;
Query OK, 3 rows affected, 3 warnings (0.00 sec)
Records: 3  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 3

mysql> SELECT @@warning_count;
+-----------------+
| @@warning_count |
+-----------------+
|               3 |
+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

mysql> SHOW WARNINGS;
+---------+------+----------------------------------------+
| Level   | Code | Message                                |
+---------+------+----------------------------------------+
| Warning | 1263 | Data truncated for column 'b' at row 1 |
+---------+------+----------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

To disable warnings, set max_error_count to 0. In this case, warning_count still indicates how many warnings have occurred, but none of the messages are stored.

13.5.5 Other Administrative Statements

13.5.5.1 CACHE INDEX Syntax

CACHE INDEX
  tbl_index_list [, tbl_index_list] ...
  IN key_cache_name

tbl_index_list:
  tbl_name [[INDEX|KEY] (index_name[, index_name] ...)]

The CACHE INDEX statement assigns table indexes to a specific key cache. It is used only for MyISAM tables.

The following statement assigns indexes from the tables t1, t2, and t3 to the key cache named hot_cache:

mysql> CACHE INDEX t1, t2, t3 IN hot_cache;
+---------+--------------------+----------+----------+
| Table   | Op                 | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+---------+--------------------+----------+----------+
| test.t1 | assign_to_keycache | status   | OK       |
| test.t2 | assign_to_keycache | status   | OK       |
| test.t3 | assign_to_keycache | status   | OK       |
+---------+--------------------+----------+----------+

The syntax of CACHE INDEX allows you to specify that only particular indexes from a table should be assigned to the cache. However, the current implementation assigns all the table's indexes to the cache, so there is no reason to specify anything other than the table name.

The key cache referred to in a CACHE INDEX statement can be created by setting its size with a parameter setting statement or in the server parameter settings. For example:

mysql> SET GLOBAL keycache1.key_buffer_size=128*1024;

Key cache parameters can be accessed as members of a structured system variable. See section 9.4.1 Structured System Variables.

A key cache must exist before you can assign indexes to it:

mysql> CACHE INDEX t1 IN non_existent_cache;
ERROR 1283 (HY000): Unknown key cache 'non_existent_cache'

By default, table indexes are assigned to the main (default) key cache created at the server startup. When a key cache is destroyed, all indexes assigned to it become assigned to the default key cache again.

Index assignment affects the server globally: If one client assigns an index to a given cache, this cache is used for all queries involving the index, no matter what client issues the queries.

CACHE INDEX was added in MySQL 4.1.1.

13.5.5.2 FLUSH Syntax

FLUSH [LOCAL | NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG] flush_option [, flush_option] ...

You should use the FLUSH statement if you want to clear some of the internal caches MySQL uses. To execute FLUSH, you must have the RELOAD privilege.

flush_option can be any of the following:

HOSTS

Empties the host cache tables. You should flush the host tables if some of your hosts change IP number or if you get the error message Host ... is blocked. When more than max_connect_errors errors occur successively for a given host while connecting to the MySQL server, MySQL assumes that something is wrong and blocks the host from further connection requests. Flushing the host tables allows the host to attempt to connect again. See section A.2.5 Host 'host_name' is blocked. You can start mysqld with --max_connect_errors=999999999 to avoid this error message.

DES_KEY_FILE

Reloads the DES keys from the file that was specified with the --des-key-file option at server startup time.

LOGS

Closes and reopens all log files. If you have specified an update log file or a binary log file without an extension, the extension number of the log file will be incremented by one relative to the previous file. If you have used an extension in the file name, MySQL will close and reopen the update log or binary log file. See section 5.9.3 The Update Log. On Unix, this is the same thing as sending a SIGHUP signal to the mysqld server (except on some Mac OS X 10.3 versions where mysqld will ignore SIGHUP and SIGQUIT).

PRIVILEGES

Reloads the privileges from the grant tables in the mysql database.

QUERY CACHE

Defragment the query cache to better utilize its memory. This statement does not remove any queries from the cache, unlike RESET QUERY CACHE.

STATUS

Resets most status variables to zero. This is something you should use only when debugging a query. See section 1.4.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems.

{TABLE | TABLES} [tbl_name [, tbl_name] ...]

When no tables are named, closes all open tables and forces all tables in use to be closed. This also flushes the query cache. With one or more table names, flushes only the given tables. FLUSH TABLES also removes all query results from the query cache, like the RESET QUERY CACHE statement.

TABLES WITH READ LOCK

Closes all open tables and locks all tables for all databases with a read lock until you execute UNLOCK TABLES. This is very convenient way to get backups if you have a filesystem such as Veritas that can take snapshots in time.

USER_RESOURCES

Resets all user resources to zero. This enables clients that have reached their hourly connection, query, or update limits to resume activity. See section 13.5.1.2 GRANT and REVOKE Syntax.

Before MySQL 4.1.1, FLUSH statements are not written to the binary log. As of MySQL 4.1.1, they are written to the binary log unless the optional NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG keyword (or its alias LOCAL) is used. Exceptions are that FLUSH LOGS, FLUSH MASTER, FLUSH SLAVE, and FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK are not logged in any case because they would cause problems if replicated to a slave.

You can also access some of these statements with the mysqladmin utility, using the flush-hosts, flush-logs, flush-privileges, flush-status, or flush-tables commands.

Take also a look at the RESET statement used with replication. See section 13.5.5.5 RESET Syntax.

13.5.5.3 KILL Syntax

KILL [CONNECTION | QUERY] thread_id

Each connection to mysqld runs in a separate thread. You can see which threads are running with the SHOW PROCESSLIST statement and kill a thread with the KILL thread_id statement.

As of MySQL 5.0.0, KILL allows the optional CONNECTION or QUERY modifiers:

• KILL CONNECTION is the same as KILL with no modifier: It terminates the connection associated with the given thread_id.
• KILL QUERY terminates the statement that the connection currently is executing, but leaves the connection intact.

If you have the PROCESS privilege, you can see all threads. If you have the SUPER privilege, you can kill all threads and statements. Otherwise, you can see and kill only your own threads and statements.

You can also use the mysqladmin processlist and mysqladmin kill commands to examine and kill threads.

Note: You currently cannot use KILL with the Embedded MySQL Server library, because the embedded server merely runs inside the threads of the host application, it does not create connection threads of its own.

When you do a KILL, a thread-specific kill flag is set for the thread. In most cases, it might take some time for the thread to die, because the kill flag is checked only at specific intervals:

• In SELECT, ORDER BY and GROUP BY loops, the flag is checked after reading a block of rows. If the kill flag is set, the statement is aborted.
• During ALTER TABLE, the kill flag is checked before each block of rows are read from the original table. If the kill flag was set, the statement is aborted and the temporary table is deleted.
• During UPDATE or DELETE, the kill flag is checked after each block read and after each updated or deleted row. If the kill flag is set, the statement is aborted. Note that if you are not using transactions, the changes will not be rolled back!
• GET_LOCK() will abort and return NULL.
• An INSERT DELAYED thread will quickly flush (insert) all rows it has in memory and terminate.
• If the thread is in the table lock handler (state: Locked), the table lock will be quickly aborted.
• If the thread is waiting for free disk space in a write call, the write is aborted with a "disk full" error message.
• Some threads might refuse to be killed. For example, REPAIR TABLE, CHECK TABLE, and OPTIMIZE TABLE cannot be killed before MySQL 4.1 and run to completion. This now is changed: REPAIR TABLE and OPTIMIZE TABLE can be killed as of MySQL 4.1.0, as can CHECK TABLE as of MySQL 4.1.3. However, killing a REPAIR TABLE or OPTIMIZE TABLE operation on a MyISAM table results in a table that IS corrupted and will be unusable (reads and writes to it will fail) until you optimize or repair it again.

13.5.5.4 LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE Syntax

LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE
  tbl_index_list [, tbl_index_list] ...

tbl_index_list:
  tbl_name
    [[INDEX|KEY] (index_name[, index_name] ...)]
    [IGNORE LEAVES]

The LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE statement preloads a table index into the key cache to which it has been assigned by an explicit CACHE INDEX statement, or into the default key cache otherwise. LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE is used only for MyISAM tables.

The IGNORE LEAVES modifier causes only blocks for the non-leaf nodes of the index to be preloaded.

The following statement preloads nodes (index blocks) of indexes of the tables t1 and t2:

mysql> LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE t1, t2 IGNORE LEAVES;
+---------+--------------+----------+----------+
| Table   | Op           | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+---------+--------------+----------+----------+
| test.t1 | preload_keys | status   | OK       |
| test.t2 | preload_keys | status   | OK       |
+---------+--------------+----------+----------+

This statement preloads all index blocks from t1. It preloads only blocks for the non-leaf nodes from t2.

The syntax of LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE allows you to specify that only particular indexes from a table should be preloaded. However, the current implementation preloads all the table's indexes into the cache, so there is no reason to specify anything other than the table name.

LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE was added in MySQL 4.1.1.

13.5.5.5 RESET Syntax

RESET reset_option [, reset_option] ...

The RESET statement is used to clear the state of various server operations. It also acts as a stronger version of the FLUSH statement. See section 13.5.5.2 FLUSH Syntax.

To execute RESET, you must have the RELOAD privilege.

reset_option can be any of the following:

MASTER

Deletes all binary logs listed in the index file, resets the binary log index file to be empty, and creates a new binary log file. Previously named FLUSH MASTER. See section 13.6.1 SQL Statements for Controlling Master Servers.

QUERY CACHE

Removes all query results from the query cache.

SLAVE

Makes the slave forget its replication position in the master binary logs. Previously named FLUSH SLAVE. See section 13.6.2 SQL Statements for Controlling Slave Servers.

13.6 Replication Statements

This section describes replication-related SQL statements. One group of statements is used for controlling master servers. The other is used for controlling slave servers.

13.6.1 SQL Statements for Controlling Master Servers

Replication can be controlled through the SQL interface. This section discusses statements for managing master replication servers. section 13.6.2 SQL Statements for Controlling Slave Servers discusses statements for managing slave servers.

13.6.1.1 PURGE MASTER LOGS Syntax

PURGE {MASTER | BINARY} LOGS TO 'log_name'
PURGE {MASTER | BINARY} LOGS BEFORE 'date'

Deletes all the binary logs listed in the log index that are strictly prior to the specified log or date. The logs also are removed from the list recorded in the log index file, so that the given log becomes the first.

Example:

PURGE MASTER LOGS TO 'mysql-bin.010';
PURGE MASTER LOGS BEFORE '2003-04-02 22:46:26';

The BEFORE variant is available as of MySQL 4.1. Its date argument can be in 'YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss' format. MASTER and BINARY are synonyms, but BINARY can be used only as of MySQL 4.1.1.

If you have an active slave that currently is reading one of the logs you are trying to delete, this statement does nothing and fails with an error. However, if a slave is dormant and you happen to purge one of the logs it wants to read, the slave will be unable to replicate once it comes up. The statement is safe to run while slaves are replicating. You do not need to stop them.

To purge logs, follow this procedure:

1. On each slave server, use SHOW SLAVE STATUS to check which log it is reading.
2. Obtain a listing of the logs on the master server with SHOW MASTER LOGS.
3. Determine the earliest log among all the slaves. This is the target log. If all the slaves are up to date, this will be the last log on the list.
4. Make a backup of all the logs you are about to delete. (The step is optional, but a good idea.)
5. Purge all logs up to but not including the target log.

13.6.1.2 RESET MASTER Syntax

RESET MASTER

Deletes all binary logs listed in the index file, resets the binary log index file to be empty, and creates a new binary log file.

This statement was named FLUSH MASTER before MySQL 3.23.26.

13.6.1.3 SET SQL_LOG_BIN Syntax

SET SQL_LOG_BIN = {0|1}

Disables or enables binary logging for the current connection (SQL_LOG_BIN is a session variable) if the client connects using an account that has the SUPER privilege. The statement is refused with an error if the client does not have that privilege. (Before MySQL 4.1.2, the statement was simply ignored in that case.)

13.6.1.4 SHOW BINLOG EVENTS Syntax

SHOW BINLOG EVENTS
   [IN 'log_name'] [FROM pos] [LIMIT [offset,] row_count]

Shows the events in the binary log. If you do not specify 'log_name', the first binary log will be displayed.

The LIMIT clause has the same syntax as for the SELECT statement. See section 13.1.7 SELECT Syntax.

This statement is available as of MySQL 4.0.

13.6.1.5 SHOW MASTER LOGS Syntax

SHOW MASTER LOGS
SHOW BINARY LOGS

Lists the binary log files on the server. This statement is used as part of the procedure described in section 13.6.1.1 PURGE MASTER LOGS Syntax for determining which logs can be purged.

SHOW MASTER LOGS was added in MySQL 3.23.38. As of MySQL 4.1.1, you can also use SHOW BINARY LOGS, which is equivalent.

13.6.1.6 SHOW MASTER STATUS Syntax

SHOW MASTER STATUS

Provides status information on the binary log files of the master.

13.6.1.7 SHOW SLAVE HOSTS Syntax

SHOW SLAVE HOSTS

Displays a list of slaves currently registered with the master. Any slave not started with the --report-host=slave_name option will not be visible in that list.

13.6.2 SQL Statements for Controlling Slave Servers

Replication can be controlled through the SQL interface. This section discusses statements for managing slave replication servers. section 13.6.1 SQL Statements for Controlling Master Servers discusses statements for managing master servers.

13.6.2.1 CHANGE MASTER TO Syntax

CHANGE MASTER TO master_def [, master_def] ...

master_def:
      MASTER_HOST = 'host_name'
    | MASTER_USER = 'user_name'
    | MASTER_PASSWORD = 'password'
    | MASTER_PORT = port_num
    | MASTER_CONNECT_RETRY = count
    | MASTER_LOG_FILE = 'master_log_name'
    | MASTER_LOG_POS = master_log_pos
    | RELAY_LOG_FILE = 'relay_log_name'
    | RELAY_LOG_POS = relay_log_pos
    | MASTER_SSL = {0|1}
    | MASTER_SSL_CA = 'ca_file_name'
    | MASTER_SSL_CAPATH = 'ca_directory_name'
    | MASTER_SSL_CERT = 'cert_file_name'
    | MASTER_SSL_KEY = 'key_file_name'
    | MASTER_SSL_CIPHER = 'cipher_list'

Changes the parameters that the slave server uses for connecting to and communicating with the master server.

MASTER_USER, MASTER_PASSWORD, MASTER_SSL, MASTER_SSL_CA, MASTER_SSL_CAPATH, MASTER_SSL_CERT, MASTER_SSL_KEY, and MASTER_SSL_CIPHER provide information for the slave about how to connect to its master.

The relay log options (RELAY_LOG_FILE and RELAY_LOG_POS) are available beginning with MySQL 4.0.

The SSL options (MASTER_SSL, MASTER_SSL_CA, MASTER_SSL_CAPATH, MASTER_SSL_CERT, MASTER_SSL_KEY, and MASTER_SSL_CIPHER) are available beginning with MySQL 4.1.1. You can change these options even on slaves that are compiled without SSL support. They are saved to the `master.info' file, but are ignored until you use a server that has SSL support enabled.

If you don't specify a given parameter, it keeps its old value, except as indicated in the following discussion. For example, if the password to connect to your MySQL master has changed, you just need to issue these statements to tell the slave about the new password:

mysql> STOP SLAVE; -- if replication was running
mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_PASSWORD='new3cret';
mysql> START SLAVE; -- if you want to restart replication

There is no need to specify the parameters that do not change (host, port, user, and so forth).

MASTER_HOST and MASTER_PORT are the hostname (or IP address) of the master host and its TCP/IP port. Note that if MASTER_HOST is equal to localhost, then, like in other parts of MySQL, the port may be ignored (if Unix socket files can be used, for example).

If you specify MASTER_HOST or MASTER_PORT, the slave assumes that the master server is different than before (even if you specify a host or port value that is the same as the current value.) In this case, the old values for the master binary log name and position are considered no longer applicable, so if you do not specify MASTER_LOG_FILE and MASTER_LOG_POS in the statement, MASTER_LOG_FILE='' and MASTER_LOG_POS=4 are silently appended to it.

MASTER_LOG_FILE and MASTER_LOG_POS are the coordinates at which the slave I/O thread should begin reading from the master the next time the thread starts. If you specify either of them, you can't specify RELAY_LOG_FILE or RELAY_LOG_POS. If neither of MASTER_LOG_FILE or MASTER_LOG_POS are specified, the slave uses the last coordinates of the slave SQL thread before CHANGE MASTER was issued. This ensures that replication has no discontinuity, even if the slave SQL thread was late compared to the slave I/O thread, when you just want to change, say, the password to use. This safe behavior was introduced starting from MySQL 4.0.17 and 4.1.1. (Before these versions, the coordinates used were the last coordinates of the slave I/O thread before CHANGE MASTER was issued. This caused the SQL thread to possibly lose some events from the master, thus breaking replication.)

CHANGE MASTER deletes all relay log files and starts a new one, unless you specify RELAY_LOG_FILE or RELAY_LOG_POS. In that case, relay logs are kept; as of MySQL 4.1.1 the relay_log_purge global variable is set silently to 0.

CHANGE MASTER TO updates the contents of the `master.info' and `relay-log.info' files.

CHANGE MASTER is useful for setting up a slave when you have the snapshot of the master and have recorded the log and the offset corresponding to it. After loading the snapshot into the slave, you can run CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_LOG_FILE='log_name_on_master', MASTER_LOG_POS=log_offset_on_master on the slave.

Examples:

mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO
    ->     MASTER_HOST='master2.mycompany.com',
    ->     MASTER_USER='replication',
    ->     MASTER_PASSWORD='bigs3cret',
    ->     MASTER_PORT=3306,
    ->     MASTER_LOG_FILE='master2-bin.001',
    ->     MASTER_LOG_POS=4,
    ->     MASTER_CONNECT_RETRY=10;

mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO
    ->     RELAY_LOG_FILE='slave-relay-bin.006',
    ->     RELAY_LOG_POS=4025;

The first example changes the master and master's binary log coordinates. This is used when you want to set up the slave to replicate the master.

The second example shows an operation that is less frequently used. It is done when the slave has relay logs that you want it to execute again for some reason. To do this, the master need not be reachable. You just have to use CHANGE MASTER TO and start the SQL thread (START SLAVE SQL_THREAD).

You can even use the second operation in a non-replication setup with a standalone, non-slave server, to recover after a crash. Suppose that your server has crashed and you have restored a backup. You want to replay the server's own binary logs (not relay logs, but regular binary logs), supposedly named `myhost-bin.*'. First, make a backup copy of these binary logs in some safe place, in case you don't exactly follow the procedure below and accidentally have the server purge the binary logs. If using MySQL 4.1.1 or newer, use SET GLOBAL relay_log_purge=0 for additional safety. Then start the server without the --log-bin option. Before MySQL 4.0.19, start it with a new (different from before) server id; in newer versions there is no need, just use the --replicate-same-server-id option. Start it with --relay-log=myhost-bin (to make the server believe that these regular binary logs are relay logs) and with --skip-slave-start. After the server starts, issue these statements:

mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO
    ->     RELAY_LOG_FILE='myhost-bin.153',
    ->     RELAY_LOG_POS=410,
    ->     MASTER_HOST='some_dummy_string';
mysql> START SLAVE SQL_THREAD;

The server will read and execute its own binary logs, thus achieving crash recovery. Once the recovery is finished, run STOP SLAVE, shut down the server, delete `master.info' and `relay-log.info', and restart the server with its original options.

For the moment, specifying MASTER_HOST (even with a dummy value) is required to make the server think it is a slave. In the future, we plan to add options to get rid of these small constraints.

13.6.2.2 LOAD DATA FROM MASTER Syntax

LOAD DATA FROM MASTER

Takes a snapshot of the master and copies it to the slave. It updates the values of MASTER_LOG_FILE and MASTER_LOG_POS so that the slave will start replicating from the correct position. Any table and database exclusion rules specified with the --replicate-*-do-* and --replicate-*-ignore-* options are honored. --replicate-rewrite-db is not taken into account (because one user could, with this option, set up a non-unique mapping such as --replicate-rewrite-db=db1->db3 and --replicate-rewrite-db=db2->db3, which would confuse the slave when it loads the master's tables).

Use of this statement is subject to the following conditions:

• It works only with MyISAM tables.
• It acquires a global read lock on the master while taking the snapshot, which prevents updates on the master during the load operation.

In the future, it is planned to make this statement work with InnoDB tables and to remove the need for a global read lock by using non-blocking online backup.

If you are loading big tables, you might have to increase the values of net_read_timeout and net_write_timeout on both your master and slave servers. See section 5.2.3 Server System Variables.

Note that LOAD DATA FROM MASTER does not copy any tables from the mysql database. This makes it easy to have different users and privileges on the master and the slave.

The LOAD DATA FROM MASTER statement requires the replication account that is used to connect to the master to have the RELOAD and SUPER privileges on the master and the SELECT privilege for all master tables you want to load. All master tables for which the user does not have the SELECT privilege are ignored by LOAD DATA FROM MASTER. This is because the master will hide them from the user: LOAD DATA FROM MASTER calls SHOW DATABASES to know the master databases to load, but SHOW DATABASES returns only databases for which the user has some privilege. See section 13.5.4.7 SHOW DATABASES Syntax. On the slave's side, the user that issues LOAD DATA FROM MASTER should have grants to drop and create the databases and tables that are copied.

13.6.2.3 LOAD TABLE tbl_name FROM MASTER Syntax

LOAD TABLE tbl_name FROM MASTER

Transfers a copy of the table from master to the slave. This statement is implemented mainly for debugging of LOAD DATA FROM MASTER. It requires that the account used for connecting to the master server has the RELOAD and SUPER privileges on the master and the SELECT privilege on the master table to load. On the slave side, the user that issues LOAD TABLE FROM MASTER should have privileges to drop and create the table.

The conditions for LOAD DATA FROM MASTER apply here, too. For example, LOAD TABLE FROM MASTER works only for MyISAM tables. The timeout notes for LOAD DATA FROM MASTER apply as well.

13.6.2.4 MASTER_POS_WAIT() Syntax

SELECT MASTER_POS_WAIT('master_log_file', master_log_pos)

This is a function, not a statement. It is used to ensure that the slave has read and executed events up to a given position in the master's binary log. See section 12.8.4 Miscellaneous Functions for a full description.

13.6.2.5 RESET SLAVE Syntax

RESET SLAVE

Makes the slave forget its replication position in the master's binary logs. This statement is meant to be used for a clean start: It deletes the `master.info' and `relay-log.info' files, all the relay logs, and starts a new relay log.

Note: All relay logs are deleted, even if they have not been totally executed by the slave SQL thread. (This is a condition likely to exist on a replication slave if you have issued a STOP SLAVE statement or if the slave is highly loaded.)

Connection information stored in the `master.info' file is immediately reset using any values specified in the corresponding startup options. This information includes values such as master host, master port, master user, and master password. If the slave SQL thread was in the middle of replicating temporary tables when it was stopped, and RESET SLAVE is issued, these replicated temporary tables are deleted on the slave.

This statement was named FLUSH SLAVE before MySQL 3.23.26.

13.6.2.6 SET GLOBAL SQL_SLAVE_SKIP_COUNTER Syntax

SET GLOBAL SQL_SLAVE_SKIP_COUNTER = n

Skip the next n events from the master. This is useful for recovering from replication stops caused by a statement.

This statement is valid only when the slave thread is not running. Otherwise, it produces an error.

Before MySQL 4.0, omit the GLOBAL keyword from the statement.

13.6.2.7 SHOW SLAVE STATUS Syntax

SHOW SLAVE STATUS

Provides status information on essential parameters of the slave threads. If you issue this statement using the mysql client, you can use a \G statement terminator rather than semicolon to get a more readable vertical layout:

mysql> SHOW SLAVE STATUS\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Slave_IO_State: Waiting for master to send event
          Master_Host: localhost
          Master_User: root
          Master_Port: 3306
        Connect_Retry: 3
      Master_Log_File: gbichot-bin.005
  Read_Master_Log_Pos: 79
       Relay_Log_File: gbichot-relay-bin.005
        Relay_Log_Pos: 548
Relay_Master_Log_File: gbichot-bin.005
     Slave_IO_Running: Yes
    Slave_SQL_Running: Yes
      Replicate_Do_DB:
  Replicate_Ignore_DB:
           Last_Errno: 0
           Last_Error:
         Skip_Counter: 0
  Exec_Master_Log_Pos: 79
      Relay_Log_Space: 552
      Until_Condition: None
       Until_Log_File:
        Until_Log_Pos: 0
   Master_SSL_Allowed: No
   Master_SSL_CA_File:
   Master_SSL_CA_Path:
      Master_SSL_Cert:
    Master_SSL_Cipher:
       Master_SSL_Key:
Seconds_Behind_Master: 8

Depending on your version of MySQL, you may not see all the fields just shown. In particular, several fields are present only as of MySQL 4.1.1.

SHOW SLAVE STATUS returns the following fields:

Slave_IO_State

A copy of the State field of the output of SHOW PROCESSLIST for the slave I/O thread. This tells you if the thread is trying to connect to the master, waiting for events from the master, reconnecting to the master, and so on. Possible states are listed in section 6.3 Replication Implementation Details. Looking at this field is necessary because, for example, the thread can be running but unsuccessfully trying to connect to the master; only this field will make you aware of the connection problem. The state of the SQL thread is not copied because it is simpler. If it is running, there is no problem; if it is not, you will find the error in the Last_Error field (described below). This field is present beginning with MySQL 4.1.1.

Master_Host

The current master host.

Master_User

The current user used to connect to the master.

Master_Port

The current master port.

Connect_Retry

The current value of the --master-connect-retry option.

Master_Log_File

The name of the master binary log file from which the I/O thread is currently reading.

Read_Master_Log_Pos

The position up to which the I/O thread has read in the current master binary log.

Relay_Log_File

The name of the relay log file from which the SQL thread is currently reading and executing.

Relay_Log_Pos

The position up to which the SQL thread has read and executed in the current relay log.

Relay_Master_Log_File

The name of the master binary log file that contains the last event executed by the SQL thread.

Slave_IO_Running

Whether or not the I/O thread is started.

Slave_SQL_Running

Whether or not the SQL thread is started.

Replicate_Do_DB, Replicate_Ignore_DB

The lists of databases that were specified with the --replicate-do-db and --replicate-ignore-db options, if any. These fields are present beginning with MySQL 4.1.1.

Replicate_Do_Table, Replicate_Ignore_Table, Replicate_Wild_Do_Table, Replicate_Wild_Ignore_Table

The lists of tables that were specified with the --replicate-do-table, --replicate-ignore-table, --replicate-wild-do-table, and --replicate-wild-ignore_table options, if any. These fields are present beginning with MySQL 4.1.1.

Last_Errno, Last_Error

The error number and error message returned by the most recently executed query. An error number of 0 and message of the empty string mean ``no error.'' If the Last_Error value is not empty, it will also appear as a message in the slave's error log. For example:

Last_Errno: 1051
Last_Error: error 'Unknown table 'z'' on query 'drop table z'

The message indicates that the table z existed on the master and was dropped there, but it did not exist on the slave, so DROP TABLE failed on the slave. (This might occur, for example, if you forget to copy the table to the slave when setting up replication.)

Skip_Counter

The last used value for SQL_SLAVE_SKIP_COUNTER.

Exec_Master_Log_Pos

The position of the last event executed by the SQL thread from the master's binary log (Relay_Master_Log_File). (Relay_Master_Log_File, Exec_Master_Log_Pos) in the master's binary log corresponds to (Relay_Log_File, Relay_Log_Pos) in the relay log.

Relay_Log_Space

The total combined size of all existing relay logs.

Until_Condition, Until_Log_File, Until_Log_Pos

The values specified in the UNTIL clause of the START SLAVE statement. Until_Condition has these values:

• None if no UNTIL clause was specified
• Master if the slave is reading until a given position in the master's binary logs
• Relay if the slave is reading until a given position in its relay logs

Until_Log_File and Until_Log_Pos indicate the log filename and position values that define the point at which the SQL thread will stop executing. These fields are present beginning with MySQL 4.1.1.

Master_SSL_Allowed, Master_SSL_CA_File, Master_SSL_CA_Path, Master_SSL_Cert, Master_SSL_Cipher, Master_SSL_Key

These fields show the SSL parameters used by the slave to connect to the master, if any. Master_SSL_Allowed has these values:

• Yes if an SSL connection to the master is allowed
• No if an SSL connection to the master is not allowed
• Ignored if an SSL connection is allowed but the slave server does not have SSL support enabled

The values of the other SSL-related fields correspond to the values of the --master-ca, --master-capath, --master-cert, --master-cipher, and --master-key options. These fields are present beginning with MySQL 4.1.1.

Seconds_Behind_Master

This field is present beginning with MySQL 4.1.1. It's been experimental and has been changed in MySQL 4.1.9. The following applies to slaves running MySQL 4.1.9 or newer. This field is an indication of how ``late'' the slave is. When the slave SQL thread is actively running (processing updates), this field is the number of seconds that have elapsed since the timestamp of the last master's event executed by that thread. When that thread has caught up on the slave I/O thread and goes idle waiting from more events from the I/O thread this field is zero. To sum up, this field measures in seconds the time difference between the slave SQL thread and the slave I/O thread. If the network connection between master and slave is fast, the slave I/O thread will be very close to master, so this field will be a good approximation of how late the slave SQL thread is compared to the master. If the network is slow, this will not be a good approximation; slave SQL thread may quite often be caught up with the slow-reading slave I/O thread, so Seconds_Behind_Master will often show a value of 0, even if I/O thread is late compared to master. In other words, this column is useful only for fast networks. This time difference computation will work even though your master and slave don't have identical clocks (the clock difference is computed when the slave I/O thread starts, and assumed to remain constant from then on). Seconds_Behind_Master will be NULL (which means ``unknown'') if the slave SQL thread is not running, or if the slave I/O thread is not running or not connected to master. For example if the slave I/O thread is sleeping for master-connect-retry seconds before reconnecting, NULL will be shown, as the slave cannot know what the master is doing now, so cannot reliably say how late it is. This field has one limitation. Indeed the timestamp is preserved through replication, which means that if your master M1 is itself a slave of M0, any event from M1's binlog which has its origin in replication of an event of M0's binlog, has the timestamp of that last event. This enables MySQL to replicate TIMESTAMP successfully. But the drawback for Seconds_Behind_Master is that if M1 also receives direct updates from clients, then the value will randomly go up and down, because sometimes the last M1's event will be from M0 and sometimes it will be from a direct update, and so will be the last timestamp.

13.6.2.8 START SLAVE Syntax

START SLAVE [thread_type [, thread_type] ... ]
START SLAVE [SQL_THREAD] UNTIL
    MASTER_LOG_FILE = 'log_name', MASTER_LOG_POS = log_pos
START SLAVE [SQL_THREAD] UNTIL
    RELAY_LOG_FILE = 'log_name', RELAY_LOG_POS = log_pos

thread_type: IO_THREAD | SQL_THREAD

START SLAVE with no options starts both of the slave threads. The I/O thread reads queries from the master server and stores them in the relay log. The SQL thread reads the relay log and executes the queries. START SLAVE requires the SUPER privilege.

If START SLAVE succeeds in starting the slave threads, it returns without any error. However, even in that case, it might be that the slave threads start and then later stop (for example, because they don't manage to connect to the master or read its binary logs, or some other problem). START SLAVE will not warn you about this. You must check your slave's error log for error messages generated by the slave threads, or check that they are running fine with SHOW SLAVE STATUS.

As of MySQL 4.0.2, you can add IO_THREAD and SQL_THREAD options to the statement to name which of the threads to start.

As of MySQL 4.1.1, an UNTIL clause may be added to specify that the slave should start and run until the SQL thread reaches a given point in the master binary logs or in the slave relay logs. When the SQL thread reaches that point, it stops. If the SQL_THREAD option is specified in the statement, it starts only the SQL thread. Otherwise, it starts both slave threads. If the SQL thread is already running, the UNTIL clause is ignored and a warning is issued.

With an UNTIL clause, you must specify both a log filename and position. Do not mix master and relay log options.

Any UNTIL condition is reset by a subsequent STOP SLAVE statement, a START SLAVE statement that includes no UNTIL clause, or a server restart.

The UNTIL clause can be useful for debugging replication, or to cause replication to proceed until just before the point where you want to avoid having the slave replicate a statement. For example, if an unwise DROP TABLE statement was executed on the master, you can use UNTIL to tell the slave to execute up to that point but no farther. To find what the event is, use mysqlbinlog with the master logs or slave relay logs, or by using a SHOW BINLOG EVENTS statement.

If you are using UNTIL to have the slave process replicated queries in sections, it is recommended that you start the slave with the --skip-slave-start option to prevent the SQL thread from running when the slave server starts. It is probably best to use this option in an option file rather than on the command line, so that an unexpected server restart does not cause it to be forgotten.

The SHOW SLAVE STATUS statement includes output fields that display the current values of the UNTIL condition.

This statement is called SLAVE START before MySQL 4.0.5. For the moment, SLAVE START is still accepted for backward compatibility, but is deprecated.

13.6.2.9 STOP SLAVE Syntax

STOP SLAVE [thread_type [, thread_type] ... ]

thread_type: IO_THREAD | SQL_THREAD

Stops the slave threads. STOP SLAVE requires the SUPER privilege.

Like START SLAVE, as of MySQL 4.0.2, this statement may be used with the IO_THREAD and SQL_THREAD options to name the thread or threads to stop.

This statement is called SLAVE STOP before MySQL 4.0.5. For the moment, SLAVE STOP is still accepted for backward compatibility, but is deprecated.

13.7 SQL Syntax for Prepared Statements

Support for server-side prepared statements was added in MySQL 4.1. This support takes advantage of the efficient client/server binary protocol, provided that you use an appropriate client programming interface. Candidate interfaces include the MySQL C API client library (for C programs) or MySQL Connector/J (for Java programs). For example, the C API provides a set of function calls that make up its prepared statement API. See section 21.2.4 C API Prepared Statements. Other language interfaces can provide support for prepared statements that use the binary protocol by linking in the C client library. (The mysqli extension in PHP 5.0 does this, for example.)

Beginning with MySQL 4.1.3, an alternative interface to prepared statements is available: SQL syntax for prepared statements. This interface is not as efficient as using the binary protocol through a prepared statement API, but requires no programming because it is available directly at the SQL level:

• You can use it when no programming interface is available to you.
• You can use it from any program that allows you to send SQL statements to the server to be executed, such as the mysql client program.
• You can use it even if the client is using an old version of the client library. The only requirement is that you be able to connect to a server that is recent enough to support SQL syntax for prepared statements.

SQL syntax for prepared statements is intended to be used for situations such as these:

• You want to test how prepared statements will work in your application before doing the application coding. Or perhaps an application has a problem executing prepared statements and you want to determine what the problem is interactively.
• You want to create a test case that describes a problem you are having with prepared statements, so that you can file a bug report.
• You need to use prepared statements but do not have access to a programming API that supports them.

SQL syntax for prepared statements is based on three SQL statements:

PREPARE stmt_name FROM preparable_stmt;

EXECUTE stmt_name [USING @var_name [, @var_name] ...];

{DEALLOCATE | DROP} PREPARE stmt_name;

The PREPARE statement prepares a statement and assigns it a name, stmt_name, by which to refer to the statement later. Statement names are not case sensitive. preparable_stmt is either a string literal or a user variable that contains the text of the statement. The text must represent a single SQL statement, not multiple statements. Within the statement, `?' characters can be used as parameter markers to indicate where data values are to be bound to the query later when you execute it. The `?' characters should not be enclosed within quotes, even if you intend to bind them to string values.

If a prepared statement already exists with the same name, it is deallocated implicitly before the new statement is prepared. This means that if the new statement contains an error and cannot be prepared, an error is returned and no statement with the given name will exist.

The scope of a prepared statement is the client session within which it is created. Other clients cannot see it.

After preparing a statement, you execute it with an EXECUTE statement that refers to the prepared statement name. If the prepared statement contains any parameter markers, you must supply a USING clause that lists user variables containing the values to be bound to the parameters. Parameter values can be supplied only by user variables, and the USING clause must name exactly as many variables as the number of parameter markers in the statement.

You can execute a given prepared statement multiple times, passing it different variables or setting the variables to different values before each execution.

To deallocate a prepared statement, use the DEALLOCATE PREPARE statement. Attempting to execute a prepared statement after deallocating it results in an error.

If you terminate a client session without deallocating a previously prepared statement, the server deallocates it automatically.

The following statements can be used as prepared statements: CREATE TABLE, DELETE, DO, INSERT, REPLACE, SELECT, SET, UPDATE, and most SHOW, statements. Other statements are not yet supported.

The following examples show two equivalent ways of preparing a statement that computes the hypotenuse of a triangle given the lengths of the two sides.

The first example shows how to create a prepared statment by using a string literal to supply the text of the statement:

mysql> PREPARE stmt1 FROM 'SELECT SQRT(POW(?,2) + POW(?,2)) AS hypotenuse';
mysql> SET @a = 3;
mysql> SET @b = 4;
mysql> EXECUTE stmt1 USING @a, @b;
+------------+
| hypotenuse |
+------------+
|          5 |
+------------+
mysql> DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt1;

The second example is similar, but supplies the text of the statement with a user variable:

mysql> SET @s = 'SELECT SQRT(POW(?,2) + POW(?,2)) AS hypotenuse';
mysql> PREPARE stmt2 FROM @s;
mysql> SET @a = 6;
mysql> SET @b = 8;
mysql> EXECUTE stmt2 USING @a, @b;
+------------+
| hypotenuse |
+------------+
|         10 |
+------------+
mysql> DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt2;

SQL syntax for prepared statements cannot be used in nested fashion. That is, a statement passed to PREPARE cannot itself be a PREPARE, EXECUTE, or DEALLOCATE PREPARE statement.

Also, SQL syntax for prepared statements is distinct from using prepared statement API calls. For example, you cannot use the mysql_stmt_prepare() C API function to prepare a PREPARE, EXECUTE, or DEALLOCATE PREPARE statement.

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