General Information

Table of Contents

16. About This Manual
Conventions Used in This Manual
17. Overview of the MySQL Database Management System
History of MySQL
The Main Features of MySQL
MySQL Stability
How Big MySQL Tables Can Be
Year 2000 Compliance
18. Overview of MySQL AB
The Business Model and Services of MySQL AB
Support
Training and Certification
Consulting
Commercial Licenses
Partnering
Contact Information
19. MySQL Support and Licensing
Support Offered by MySQL AB
Copyrights and Licenses Used by MySQL
MySQL Licenses
Using the MySQL Software Under a Commercial License
Using the MySQL Software for Free Under GPL
MySQL AB Logos and Trademarks
The Original MySQL Logo
MySQL Logos that may be Used Without Written Permission
When You Need Written Permission to Use MySQL Logos
MySQL AB Partnership Logos
Using the Word MySQL in Printed Text or Presentations
Using the Word MySQL in Company and Product Names
20. MySQL Development Roadmap
MySQL 4.0 in a Nutshell
Features Available in MySQL 4.0
The Embedded MySQL Server
MySQL 4.1 in a Nutshell
Features Available in MySQL 4.1
Stepwise Rollout
Ready for Immediate Development Use
MySQL 5.0, The Next Development Release
21. MySQL and the Future (The TODO)
New Features Planned for 4.1
New Features Planned for 5.0
New Features Planned for 5.1
New Features Planned for the Near Future
New Features Planned for the Mid-Term Future
New Features We Don't Plan to Implement
22. MySQL Information Sources
MySQL Mailing Lists
The MySQL Mailing Lists
Asking Questions or Reporting Bugs
How to Report Bugs or Problems
Guidelines for Answering Questions on the Mailing List
MySQL Community Support on IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
23. MySQL Standards Compliance
What Standards MySQL Follows
Selecting SQL Modes
Running MySQL in ANSI Mode
MySQL Extensions to the SQL-92 Standard
MySQL Differences Compared to SQL-92
Subqueries
SELECT INTO TABLE
Transactions and Atomic Operations
Stored Procedures and Triggers
Foreign Keys
Views
-- as the Start of a Comment
How MySQL Deals with Constraints
Constraint PRIMARY KEY / UNIQUE
Constraint NOT NULL and DEFAULT values
Constraint ENUM and SET
Known Errors and Design Deficiencies in MySQL
Errors in 3.23 Fixed in a Later MySQL Version
Errors in 4.0 Fixed in a Later MySQL Version
Open Bugs / Design Deficiencies in MySQL

The MySQL (R) software delivers a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software. MySQL is a trademark of MySQL AB.

The MySQL software is Dual Licensed. Users can choose to use the MySQL software as an Open Source/Free Software product under the terms of the GNU General Public License (http://www.fsf.org/licenses/) or can purchase a standard commercial license from MySQL AB. See Licensing and Support.

The MySQL web site (http://www.mysql.com/) provides the latest information about the MySQL software.

The following list describes some sections of particular interest in this manual:

Important:

Reports of errors (often called bugs), as well as questions and comments, should be sent to the general MySQL mailing list. See Mailing-list. See Bug reports.

The mysqlbug script should be used to generate bug reports on Unix. (Windows distributions contain a file mysqlbug.txt in the base directory that can be used as a template for a bug report.)

For source distributions, the mysqlbug script can be found in the scripts directory. For binary distributions, mysqlbug can be found in the bin directory (/usr/bin for the MySQL-server RPM package).

If you have found a sensitive security bug in MySQL Server, please let us know immediately by sending an email message to .