Summary

In this chapter, we looked at the basics of interacting with the database API. Although it's something that has taken a significant step back in importance in day-to-day Drupal module development, it's important to understand it and be able work with it.

We started the chapter by creating our very own database tables to hold player and team information in a relational way. We did so using an API that transforms definitions into actual tables without us having to even understand much about MySQL. The SQL terminology and basic operations are, however, something that every developer should be familiar with, notwithstanding their actual day-to-day application in Drupal.

Then, we looked at some examples of how we can run SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE queries using both the more SQL-oriented way of writing statements and the query builder approach, which uses an OO representation of the queries. We've also seen how these queries can be wrapped into transactions...