Chapter 12. Techniques for Programming

This, the fourth and final programming chapter of the book, will show you some specific ways of using programming languages to interface with MySQL. Whereas chapters 7 through 9 demonstrate how to do basic MySQL interactions with PHP, Perl, and Java, the focus here is more on theory and techniques: how to do certain things using a programming language. The particulars to be discussed include storing and retrieving binary data, generating query result pages, using transactions, and calling stored procedures.

The techniques demonstrated in this chapter cover a handful of what I believe are the more commonly needed programming topics. I'll be showing one workable solution to each of the quandaries. While you will most likely find yourself using slight variants on these techniques, following the steps for each topic should give you a sufficient sense of the theory behind them. I'll use one of the previously discussed languages (PHP, Perl, and Java) for each example, but you should be able to recognize and translate the techniques to whichever language you are using.