Introduction
In the previous chapter, we explored SQL subqueries, CASE
statements, and views. These features offer great flexibility when we work with database resources. To use these features, and all the other SQL product query features we have seen so far, we type a SQL command into the development environment, run it, and look for the results somewhere within that environment. This approach certainly works well enough, and we relied on it as we learned about MySQL. However, it won't work for applications that rely on SQL database products as data resources. We need a product feature that can somehow automate the queries we want to run and reliably handle all the required management and overhead. Fortunately, modern SQL products, including MySQL, offer the following features to solve this problem:
- Stored procedures
- Functions
- Triggers
These features involve actual programming, and in this chapter, we'll explore the basic programming concepts. We&apos...