It hasn’t taken Web developers long to discover that when it comes to creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites, MySQL and PHP provide a winning open source combination. Add this book to the mix, and there’s no limit to the powerful, interactive Web sites that developers can create. With step-by-step instructions, complete scripts, and expert tips to guide readers, veteran author and database designer Larry Ullman gets right down to business: After grounding readers with separate discussions of first the scripting language (PHP) and then the database program (MySQL), he goes on to cover security, sessions and cookies, and using additional Web tools, with several sections devoted to creating sample applications. This guide is indispensable for intermediate- to advanced level Web designers who want to replace their static sites with something dynamic. In this edition, the bulk of the new material covers the latest versions of both technologies: PHP 6 (due out in 2008) and MySQL 5 (available now). The book’s publication date is likely to beat the official release of PHP 6, making it one of the first books available on the subject.

SQL Server 2005 is a dramatically expanded and enhanced version of SQL Server 2000– that not only makes SQL Server a true enterprise-level RDBMS, but also changes how SQL Server professionals design databases and develop database applications.

Pro SQL Server 2005 provides in-depth coverage of new SQL Server features and enhancements. It focuses on what experienced SQL Server DBAs, developers, and Business Intelligence practitioners need to know to get up to speed with SQL Server 2005 as quickly as possible. It carefully presents each new feature and precisely illustrates the feature with examples that show you how to use it effectively.

This book offers incisive, expert guidance on all of the major new functionality of SQL Server 2005, covering topics that are essential for all SQL Server professionals, including

• Transact-SQL enhancements
• SQL Server Management Studio
• CLR integration and programming stored procedures in C#
• SQL Server Reporting Services enhancements
• SQL Server Analysis Services enhancements
• The new XML datatype and XQuery support
• Security enhancements and Service Broker
• SQL Server Integration Services for data extraction, transformation, and loading

The authors provide practical, in-depth coverage of the core topics that they specialize in–all supported by realistic examples, so you’ll be able to design and implement your own SQL Server 2005 solutions quickly and painlessly. This book is a roadmap for exploring and exploiting SQL Server 2005. So fasten your seatbelts, start your computers, and race to mastery of SQL Server 2005!

The vast majority of Oracle SQL books discuss some syntax, provide the barest rudiments of using Oracle SQL, and perhaps include a few simple examples. It might be enough to pass a survey course, or give you some buzz words to drop in conversation with real Oracle DBAs. But if you use Oracle SQL on a regular basis, you want much more. You want to access the full power of SQL to write queries in an Oracle environment. You want a solid understanding of what’s possible with Oracle SQL, creative techniques for writing effective and accurate queries, and the practical, hands-on information that leads to true mastery of the language. Simply put, you want useful, expert best practices that can be put to work immediately, not just non-vendor specific overview or theory. Updated to cover the latest version of Oracle, Oracle 10g, this edition of the highly regarded Mastering Oracle SQL has a stronger focus on technique and on Oracle’s implementation of SQL than any other book on the market. It covers Oracle s vast library of built-in functions, the full range of Oracle SQL query-writing features, regular expression support, new aggregate and analytic functions, subqueries in the SELECT and WITH clauses, multiset union operators, enhanced support for hierarchical queries: leaf and loop detection, and the CONNECT_BY_ROOT operator, new partitioning methods (some introduced in Oracle9i Release 2), and the native XML datatype, XMLType. Mastering Oracle SQL, 2nd Edition fills the gap between the sometimes spotty vendor documentation, and other books on SQL that just don’t explore the full depth of what is possible with Oracle-specific SQL. For those who want to harness the untapped (and often overlooked) power of Oracle SQL, this essential guide for putting Oracle SQL to work will prove invaluable.

Learn cutting-edge technology from Oracle experts

Written by Oracle insiders, this comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know about Real Application Clusters — low-cost hardware platforms that can rival and exceed the quality of service, availability, and scalability of the most expensive mainframe systems.

• Concepts covered are applicable to all previous versions of Oracle
• Tuning and troubleshooting tips, providing insight on the most advanced diagnostics available
• Detailed coverage of advanced RAC concepts
• Working code for all examples available online

From the Back Cover
Learn to Implement Oracle Real Application Clusters Technology from the Ground Up

Maximize database availability, scalability, and efficiency using Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) and the in-depth information contained in this Oracle Press guide. Oracle Database 10g Real Application Clusters Handbook explains RAC concepts, administration, tuning, and troubleshooting. Inside, you’ll learn how to prepare and create Oracle RAC databases and servers, and automate administrative tasks. You’ll also get full coverage of cutting-edge Oracle RAC diagnostic tools, backup and recovery procedures, performance tweaks, and custom application design strategies.

• Install, configure, and administer Oracle Database 10g Real Application Clusters
• Use Automatic Storage Management and manage the disk groups
• Administer Oracle RAC databases and instances, and manage the Services voting disk
• Implement workload management, intelligent load balancing, and Transparent Application Failover (TAF)
• Execute RAC backup and recovery operations
• Analyze and tune performance using AWR and AWR reports
• Understand the internals of lock and resource management in RAC
• Troubleshoot Oracle RAC databases with LMON traces, LMD traces, and alert logs
• Design and debug applications that run on Oracle Real Application Clusters

The Most Complete Guide to Maximizing Oracle Recovery Manager

Deploy a rock-solid data backup and disaster recovery strategy with the in-depth guidance of this authoritative volume. From the exclusive publishers of Oracle Press books, Oracle Database 10g RMAN Backup & Recovery shows you, step by step, how to set up RMAN-ready databases, create reliable backup tapes and discs, and perform accurate Oracle system restores. Find out how to use RMAN from the command line and from Enterprise Manager, generate meaningful lists and reports, and automate administrative tasks using third-party media management tools. Plus, you’ll learn to perform incremental backups, Flashback recoveries, and database cloning.

• Set up, configure, and maintain Oracle Database 10g RMAN
• Use RMAN recovery catalogs, target database packages, and control files
• Centralize backup tape management using Oracle Secure Backup
• Perform online, offline, and incremental system backups
• Monitor and tune performance with Enterprise Manager Grid Control and Database Control
• Accomplish complete and partial RMAN database restores
• Improve functionality using VERITAS NetBackup, EMC NetWorker Module, and Tivoli Storage Manager
• Overcome human errors using Flashback Versions Query and Transaction Query
• Create clone and standby databases from tape and disc backups
• Work with Real Application Cluster (RAC) databases and sync-and-split hardware technologies

Pro SQL Server 2005 Database Design and Optimization will teach you effective strategies for designing proper databases. It covers everything from how to gather business requirements to logical data modeling and normalization. It then shows you how to implement your design on SQL Server 2005.

The authors also describe how to optimize and secure access to this data, covering indexing strategies, SQL design and optimization, and strategies for increased scalability to support large numbers of concurrent users. They provide in-depth advice on optimal code distribution in SQL Server 2005 applications, in the wake of innovations to be able to use .NET code in the database itself. This essential book will ensure that projects have a well-designed database and secure, optimized data access strategies right from the start.

Expert SQL Server 2005 Development is the most advanced book of its kind on the market to help you actively develop expertise. Instead of rehashing the documentation, this book shows how to use SQL Server 2005 to solve real-world business problems, by emphasizing development best practices and building your skills as a developer.

The book’s goal is to help you recognize similar real-life work problems and analogize effectively to solve them. To that end, many exercises are included to help strengthen these skills. You will learn not only what tools and techniques are available, but also how to carefully choose and confidently apply them to produce high-quality designs and applications.

The implementation of stored procedures in MySQL 5.0 a huge milestone — one that is expected to lead to widespread enterprise adoption of the already extremely popular MySQL database. If you are serious about building the web-based database applications of the future, you need to get up to speed quickly on how stored procedures work — and how to build them the right way. This book, destined to be the bible of stored procedure development, is a resource that no real MySQL programmer can afford to do without.

In the decade since MySQL burst on the scene, it has become the dominant open source database, with capabilities and performance rivaling those of commercial RDBMS offerings like Oracle and SQL Server. Along with Linux and PHP, MySQL is at the heart of millions of applications. And now, with support for stored procedures, functions, and triggers in MySQL 5.0, MySQL offers the programming power needed for true enterprise use.

MySQL’s new procedural language has a straightforward syntax, making it easy to write simple programs. But it’s not so easy to write secure, easily maintained, high-performance, and bug-free programs. Few in the MySQL world have substantial experience yet with stored procedures, but Guy Harrison and Steven Feuerstein have decades of combined expertise.
In MySQL Stored Procedure Programming, they put that hard-won experience to good use. Packed with code examples and covering everything from language basics to application building to advanced tuning and best practices, this highly readable book is the one-stop guide to MySQL development. It consists of four major sections:

• MySQL stored programming fundamentals — tutorial, basic statements, SQL in stored programs, and error handling
• Building MySQL stored programs — transaction handling, built-in functions, stored functions, and triggers
• MySQL stored programs in applications — using stored programs with PHP, Java, Perl, Python, and .NET (C# and VB.NET)
• Optimizing MySQL stored programs — security, basic and advanced SQL tuning, optimizing stored program code, and programming best practices

A companion web site contains many thousands of lines of code, that you can put to use immediately.

Guy Harrison is Chief Architect of Database Solutions at Quest Software and a frequent speaker and writer on MySQL topics. Steven Feuerstein is the author of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, the classic reference for Oracle stored programming for more than ten years. Both have decades of experience as database developers, and between them they have authored a dozen books.

Good programming–which is to say, programming that yields both efficient code and a profitable life for the programmer–depends on not reinventing the wheel. If someone else has solved the problem you’re facing (and someone almost always has), you’d be foolish to waste your energy figuring out your own solution. MySQL Cookbook presents solutions to scores of problems related to the MySQL database server. Readers stand a good chance of finding a ready-made solution to problems such as querying databases, validating and formatting data, importing and exporting values, and using advanced features like session tracking and transactions. Paul DuBois has done a great job assembling efficient solutions to common database programming problems, and teaches his readers a lot about MySQL and its attendant APIs in the process.

DuBois organizes his cookbook’s recipes into sections on the problem, the solution stated simply, and the solution implemented in code and discussed. The implementation and discussion sections are the most valuable, as they contain the command sequences, code listings, and design explanations that can be transferred to outside projects. The main gripe readers will have about MySQL Cookbook is that the author, in his effort to cover the range of MySQL-friendly programming languages, uses different languages in his solutions to various problems. You’ll see a Perl solution to one programming challenge (Perl, in fact, is the most frequently used language, followed by PHP), a Python fix for the next, and a Java sample after that. Readers have to hope that they find a solution in the language they’re working with, or that they’re able to transliterate the one DuBois has provided. It’s usually not a big problem. –David Wall

Topics covered: How to make MySQL databases do your bidding–in terms of queries, table manipulation, data formatting, transactions, and Web interfaces–through the database server’s command line interfaces and (more importantly) through the MySQL APIs of Perl, PHP, Java, and Python. Particularly excellent coverage deals with formatting dates and times, management of null values, string manipulation, and import/export techniques. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description
Along with MySQL’s popularity has come a flood of questions about solving specific problems, and that’s where this Cookbook is essential. Designed as a handy resource when you need quick solutions or techniques, the book offers dozens of short, focused pieces of code and hundreds of worked-out examples for programmers of all levels who don’t have the time (or expertise) to solve MySQL problems from scratch.

The new edition covers MySQL 5.0 and its powerful new features, as well as the older but still widespread MySQL 4.1. One major emphasis of this book is how to use SQL to formulate queries for particular kinds of questions, using the mysql client program included in MySQL distributions. The other major emphasis is how to write programs that interact with the MySQL server through an API. You’ll find plenty of examples using several language APIs in multiple scenarios and situations, including the use of Ruby to retrieve and format data. There are also many new examples for using Perl, PHP, Python, and Java as well.

Other recipes in the book teach you to:

• Access data from multiple tables at the same time
• Use SQL to select, sort, and summarize rows
• Find matches or mismatches between rows in two tables
• Determine intervals between dates or times, including age calculations
• Store images into MySQL and retrieve them for display in web pages
• Get LOAD DATA to read your data files properly or find which values in the file are invalid
• Use strict mode to prevent entry of bad data into your database
• Copy a table or a database to another server
• Generate sequence numbers to use as unique row identifiers
• Create database events that execute according to a schedule
• And a lot more

MySQL Cookbook doesn’t attempt to develop full-fledged, complex applications. Instead, it’s intended to assist you in developing applications yourself by helping you get past problems that have you stumped.

Whether you’re running a business, keeping track of members and meetings for a club, or just trying to organize a large and diverse collection of information, you’ll find the MySQL database engine useful for answering questions such as:

• Which are my top ten fastest-selling products?
• How frequently does this person come to our facility?
• What was the highest, lowest, and average score of the team last season?

MySQL, the most popular open-source database, offers the power of a relational database in a package that’s easy to set up and administer, and Learning MySQL provides all the tools you need to get started. This densely packed tutorial includes detailed instructions to help you set up and design an effective database, create powerful queries using SQL, configure MySQL for improved security, and squeeze information out of your data.

After covering the basics, the book travels far into MySQL’s subtleties, including complex queries and joins, how to interact with the database over the Web using PHP or Perl, and important house-keeping such as backups and security.

Topic include:

• Installation on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X
• Basic and advanced querying using SQL
• User management and security
• Backups and recovery
• Tuning for improved efficiency
• Developing command-line and web database applications using the PHP and Perl programming languages

The authors, Saied Tahaghoghi and Hugh E. Williams, have careers in academia and business, and share a keen interest in research into search technologies.

Whether you’ve never touched a database or have already completed some MySQL projects, you’ll find insights in Learning MySQL that will last a career.