Conventions Used in This Book

Typographical conventions used in this book are as follows:

Monospaced font indicates hostnames, filenames, directory names, commands, options, and Web sites. Where commands are shown as you enter them, bold monospaced font indicates the part you enter. Italicized font in commands indicates where you should substitute a value of your own choosing.

In commands, the prompt indicates how the command is run. The % prompt is used for most commands; in general, these may be run either from your UNIX shell or from the DOS prompt. More specialized prompts are #, which indicates a command run as the UNIX root user, and C:\> to indicate a command intended specifically for Windows. SQL statements that are issued from the mysql program are shown with the mysql> prompt.

In SQL statements, SQL keywords and function names are written in uppercase. Database, table, and column names are written in lowercase. In syntax descriptions, square brackets ([]) indicate optional information.

The term "Windows NT-based systems" stands collectively for the family of Windows variants that are based on Windows NT, which currently includes Windows NT, 2000, and XP. It does not include Windows 95, 98, or Me.