The MySQL database management system has become quite popular in recent years. This has been true especially in the Linux and open source communities, but MySQL's presence in the commercial sector now is increasing as well. It is well liked for several reasons: MySQL is fast, and it's easy to set up, use, and administrate. MySQL runs under many varieties of Unix and Windows, and MySQL-based programs can be written in many languages. MySQL is especially heavily used in combination with a web server for constructing database-backed web sites that involve dynamic content generation.

With MySQL's rise in popularity comes the need to address the questions posed by its users about how to solve specific problems. That is the purpose of MySQL Cookbook. It's designed to serve as a handy resource to which you can turn when you need quick solutions or techniques for attacking particular types of questions that come up when you use MySQL. Naturally, because it's a cookbook, it contains recipes: straightforward instructions you can follow rather than develop your own code from scratch. It's written using a problem-and-solution format designed to be extremely practical and to make the contents easy to read and assimilate. It contains many short sections, each describing how to write a query, apply a technique, or develop a script to solve a problem of limited and specific scope. This book doesn't attempt to develop full-fledged applications. Instead, it's intended to assist you in developing such applications yourself by helping you get past problems that have you stumped.