Part I. Introduction

SQL is a compact and powerful language for working with databases. Despite this compactness, it cannot be described simply in a few chapters. We would do the language no justice then. And that certainly applies to MySQL’s SQL dialect, which has many, many possibilities. For this reason, we start this book with a number of introductory chapters that form the first part.

In Chapter 1, “Introduction to MySQL,” we provide an overall description of SQL, including its background and history, and the history of MySQL. MySQL is open source software; in Section 1.8, we explain what that really means. We also describe a number of concepts in the relational model (the theory behind SQL).

This book contains many examples and exercises. ...

Get SQL for MySQL Developers: A Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.