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Hopefully the material presented in this chapter provided you with a few important tips and, more importantly, got you thinking about the many attack vectors that your application and server face. However, it’s important to understand that the topics described in this section are but a tiny sliver of the total security pie. If you’re new to the subject, take some time to learn more about some of the more prominent security-related Web sites. Regardless of your prior experience, you need to devise a strategy for staying abreast of breaking security news. Subscribing to the newsletters both from the more prevalent security-focused Web sites and from the product developers may be the best way to do so. However, your strategic preference is somewhat irrelevant; what is important is that you have a strategy and stick to it, lest your castle be conquered.

The administrative overhead required of many database servers often outweighs the advantages of added power they offer to many projects. SQLite offers an ideal remedy to this dilemma, providing a fast and capable back end at a cost of minimum maintenance. Given SQLite’s commitment to standards, ideal licensing arrangements, and quality, consider saving yourself time, resources, and money by using SQLite for your future projects.

PDO offers users a powerful means for consolidating otherwise incongruous database commands, allowing for an almost trivial means for migrating an application from one database solution to another. Furthermore, it encourages greater productivity among the PHP language developers due to the separation of language-specific and database-specific features. If your clients expect an application that allows them to use a preferred database, you’re encouraged to keep an eye on this new extension as it matures in the coming months.

The next chapter begins the detailed introduction to the MySQL database server. From there you’ll learn all about MySQL installation and configuration, table structures, datatypes, and a variety of other pertinent topics. This sets the stage for several chapters discussing how PHP and MySQL are most effectively integrated.

From internal project to global competitor, MySQL has indeed come a very long way in just a few short years. This chapter offered a brief overview of this climb to stardom, detailing MySQL’s history, progress, and future. A few of the thousands of successful user stories were also presented, highlighting the use of MySQL at craigslist.org, Yahoo! Finance, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

In the following chapters, you’ll become further acquainted with many MySQL basic topics, including the installation and configuration process, the many MySQL clients, table structures, and MySQL’s security features. If you’re new to MySQL, this material will prove invaluable for getting up to speed regarding the basic features and behavior of this powerful database server. If you’re already quite familiar with MySQL, consider browsing the material nonetheless; at the very least, it should serve as a valuable reference.

This chapter set the stage for starting experimentation with the MySQL server. You learned not only how to install and configure MySQL, but also a bit regarding how to optimize the installation to best fit your administrative and application preferences. Configuration and optimization issues are revisited throughout the remainder of this book as necessary.

The next chapter introduces MySQL’s many clients, which offer a convenient means for interacting with many facets of the server.

This chapter introduced MySQL’s many clients, and provided special attention to what for many are the two most important of the bunch: mysql and mysqladmin. Several of the most prevalent GUI-based management solutions were also presented. Because administration is such a key aspect of maintaining a healthy database server, consider experimenting with all of them to determine which route best fits your specific database management situation.

The next chapter addresses another key aspect of MySQL: table structures and datatypes. You’ll learn about the various table types and the supported datatypes and attributes, and will be presented with numerous examples regarding how to create, modify, and use databases, tables, and columns.

In this chapter, you learned about the many ingredients that go into MySQL table design. The chapter kicked off the discussion with a survey of MySQL’s storage engines, discussing the purpose and advantages of each. This discussion was followed by an introduction to MySQL’s supported datatypes, offering information about the name, purpose, and range of each. We then examined many of the most commonly used attributes, which serve to further tweak column behavior. The chapter then moved on to a short tutorial on basic MySQL administration commands, demonstrating how databases and tables are listed, created, deleted, perused, and altered. Finally, you were introduced to the new INFORMATION_SCHEMA feature found in MySQL 5.0.2 and newer.

In the next chapter, we’ll dive into another key MySQL feature: security. You’ll learn all about MySQL’s powerful privilege tables, as well as learn more about how to secure the MySQL server daemon and create secure MySQL connections using SSL.

An uninvited database intrusion can wipe away months of work and erase inestimable value. Therefore, although the topics covered in this chapter generally lack the glamour of other feats, such as creating a database connection and altering a table structure, the importance of taking the time to thoroughly understand these security topics cannot be understated. It’s strongly recommended that you take adequate time to understand MySQL’s security features, because they should be making a regular appearance in all of your MySQL-driven applications.

The next chapter introduces PHP’s MySQL library, showing you how to manipulate MySQL database data through your PHP scripts. That chapter is followed by an introduction to the MySQLi library, which should be used if you’re running PHP 5 and MySQL 4.1 or greater.

If you’re new to combining PHP and MySQL, hopefully this chapter answered many of your initial questions regarding what PHP’s MySQL library can do. If you’re already well-versed in the matter, this chapter will serve as a valuable reference for moving forward. Regardless of your level of expertise, this chapter set the stage for some of the more advanced topics found in subsequent chapters.

Building on the long-standing capabilities of PHP- and MySQL-driven applications, the mysqli extension offers expanding capabilities when using these two great technologies together. If you’re running PHP 5 and MySQL 4.1.3 or greater, you should definitely take advantage of this extension, not only for its new features, but also for its greater stability and performance.

The next chapter introduces stored procedures, one of MySQL 5’s new features, which will help you to incorporate a greater level of both efficiency and security into your MySQL-driven applications.