Conclusion

In this chapter we provided an overview of the building blocks of the MySQL stored program language. The MySQL stored program languagebased on the ANSI SQL:2003 PSM specificationis a block-structured language that supports all the programming fundamentals that you would expect from a procedural language. The major aspects of the stored program language with which you should be familiar at this point are:

• The DECLARE statement, which allows you to define and initialize program variables.
• Stored program parameters, which allow you to pass information into orin the case of stored proceduresout of a stored program.
• The SET statement, which allows you to change the value of a program variable.
• MySQL functions, operators, and data typesthe MySQL stored program language utilizes most of the equivalents available in the MySQL SQL language.

Stored program type checking is very dependent on the setting of the sql_mode configuration variable. If a program is created when the sql_mode variable includes one of the strict settings (STRICT_TRANS_TABLES or STRICT_ALL_TABLES), then the program will reject invalid variable assignments with an error. If neither of the strict modes is in effect, then the stored program will generate an error when invalid data assignments occur, but will continue execution. Non-strict stored program behavior can lead to unexpected and subtle bugs, and we recommend that you usually use the strict mode when creating your stored programs.