Overview of User Interfaces

You have various options as to the user interface or client to MySQL that you choose to use. The three most popular user interfaces are the command-line interface mysql (also known as the MySQL monitor), MySQL Control Center ( MySQLCC for short), and phpMyAdmin .

The MySQL monitor comes with your basic installation. It is a command-line interface. This is always available as an option, it is simple to use, and it works on all platforms.

The MySQL Control Center (MySQLCC) is a graphical user interface. It is written using the Qt windowing toolkit, which is cross-platform. At the time of writing, MySQLCC was available for Unix and Windows, and it is planned to be available for OS X in the future.

phpMyAdmin is a Web-based interface for using MySQL. It is very popular with ISPs that supply MySQL for use in developing Web applications.

If you have MySQL installed, you already have the MySQL monitor. MySQLCC is an official MySQL product, but depending on which MySQL version you have, it may be a separate download. You can get it from

www.mysql.com/downloads/mysqlcc.html

MySQLCC is extremely simple to install, and you can find instructions for this at

www.mysql.com/products/mysqlcc/install.html

phpMyAdmin can be downloaded from

www.phpmyadmin.net/

If you want to install phpMyAdmin yourself, you will first need a working Web server and PHP installation.

For the purposes of this book, it does not matter which user interface you choose to use. The functionality is basically the same for all of them. You enter queries as text, and the results are displayed as text, regardless of which user interface you use.

The examples given were usually tested using the MySQL monitor, but you can use whatever you like ”mysql, MySQLCC, phpMyAdmin, or any other front end you find on the Net. For some tasks , you will need to exit from your user interface and use a command line.