Topic: Starting to scope out MYSQL

[Ed Form]

Having finally waded through the various confusing messages in the forums giving advice on getting into MySQL, I've managed to create a user and look into the existing databases on my 5.6 test server. One of them is called 'test' and appears to be completely empty. Is this, as its name suggests, a place to play which won't mess up the other database structures in MySQl that the system depends on?

In addition to that question, I thought it might be useful for others wanting to look into using the database system, if I posted a version of the user creation command that will actually work, since not one of the commands given in the messages I was able to find did - either because they were confusing and did not tell me what I should actually do, or because they were just plain wrong. This includes the command suggested in Dan Brown's howto.

The MySQL user name does not have to be one of the names registered as a user in the SME access tables and the password used to access MySQL can be anything you like. Use your normal user name and password by all means.

User to be given access      simpleton
Password                          dummy

To make simpleton a full privileges user who can access all the databases on the SME server, you need to go to the command line of your server and log in as root.

Then issue the following command...

      mysql

...and hit enter.

At this point the prompt will change to...

 mysql>

Now issue the following command

      grant all privileges on *.* to simpleton identified by 'dummy';

Note the single quotation marks round the password and the semi-colon at the end of the line. Hit enter and the mysql> prompt will return.

Now type \q and hit enter again and you're out of the MySQL command console with your new user created.

When you enter your MySQL manager program on your Windows workstation you have to log onto the server and to do this you need to know one more bit of info.

The port used by MySQL is 3306.

Many of the manager programs supply this port number automatically, but some don't.

Hope this helps anyone who is as confused as I was.

Ed Form

[RayG]

You might consider the PHPMyAdmin package available here. It's a PHP based administration tool for MySQL and really takes the drudgery out of database creation and maintainence.

[Ed Form]

RayG wrote:
>
> You might consider the PHPMyAdmin package available here.
> It's a PHP based administration tool for MySQL and really
> takes the drudgery out of database creation and maintainence.

Thanks for that. I've already started evaluating EMS MySQL Manager 2 and DBTools, both of which seem really easy to use. All I really want to be able to do is build a sort of glorified address book for use by lawyers to dump addresses and blocks of text into letters in an MSWord mailmerge. So the database is a flatfile, single table item. Hardly rocket science.

Ed Form

[Matt Quelch]

Just to pop my two pennies worth in. You should visit www.mysql.com. They have some of thre best documentation around. Full stop.

[Ed Form]

Matt Quelch wrote:
>
> Just to pop my two pennies worth in. You should visit
> www.mysql.com. They have some of thre best documentation
> around. Full stop.

Thank's for the tip. I spotted this myself and have a folder full of the stuff. It tends to be rather too technically presented for hayseeds like me. Some of the privately produced tutorials seem much more accessible. One of them dealt with using MS Access as the front end for data in MySQL, and I have to say it's childishly easy.

Ed Form