What is MySQL?
One of the most popular open-source relational database management systems worldwide. Since the 1980s, David Axmark, Allan Larsson, and Michael Widenius led MySQL’s development in Sweden. One developer named Monty, whose real name is Michael Widenius, is mentioned. At first, it was owned and supported by the Swedish corporation MySQL AB. eventually, Sun Microsystems bought it, and Oracle Corporation eventually bought it. Oracle Corporation now creates, distributes, and maintains MySQL.
MySQL is a Relaiiltional Database Management System (RDBMS)
A standard version of the Structured Query Language (SQL) serves as the foundation for MySQL. All RDBMSs recognize SQL as the standard language for database administration. Relational databases, in which data is kept in tables, are created and maintained using a set of commands called SQL. SQL is a programming language, and MySQL is a database program that handles, stores, deletes, and modifies data using SQL. MySQL database access requires SQL from all programs and users.
MySQL is popular for its rapid performance, stability, and usability. RDBMS is quick, trustworthy, and simple. The software is easy to customize.
Key Features of MySQL

- Open Source & Free of Cost: MySQL is freely available and open source, as it is licensed under an open-source license such the GNU General Public License. This indicates that using it is free of charge or payment. It can be downloaded for free from the internet. The software is flexible since programmers can alter it to suit their own environments according to the open-source GPL license.
- Portability across OS/Hardware: MySQL is a platform-neutral program. Windows, UNIX, LINUX, and Mac OS X are just a few of the hardware and operating systems on which it may be installed and used.
- Security (password protected): MySQL builds password-protected databases. Passwords can be used to create user accounts and manage access.
- Connectivity: MySQL supports multiple protocols and programming languages for network clients. It works with Java, C++, PHP, PERL, and Python. The most common web programming language, PHP, works nicely with MySQL.
- High Performance: MySQL is incredibly fast and efficient. Even when working with big datasets, it operates efficiently and rapidly. Although MySQL performance is a complicated topic with many facets, you don’t have to be an expert to get outstanding results. Performance is determined by how well the application uses MySQL, not by MySQL itself.
- Reliability: MySQL is renowned for its exceptional dependability. It has been out for some time, and its iterations are comparatively reliable, with bugs from earlier iterations being consistently fixed.
- Flexibility: The structure of MySQL is adaptable. Massive warehouses that store terabytes of data and highly integrated apps can be managed thanks to its on-demand scalability. It provides unparalleled on-demand flexibility and scalability.
- Supports Large Databases: MySQL has the capacity to manage big datasets. Large databases with tables of 50 million rows or more are supported. A table’s file size limit is 4GB by default, but if the operating system permits it, it can theoretically be raised to 8 million terabytes (TB).
Many major organizations utilize MySQL. Google, Facebook, YouTube, Nokia, the BBC, Intel, Sun, SAP, Dell, and AMD are just a few of the vast websites that use it. The open-source LAMP stack, which consists of PHP (programming language), MySQL (database), Apache (web server), and Linux, depends on MySQL. MySQL is a common back-end data storage for websites. On the internet, this database system is frequently utilized.
Through its DBMS, MySQL offers tools for creating and managing databases, structuring data storage, querying, sorting, and manipulating data, validating data, checking for errors, and generating reports. Relational databases store information in one or more tables made up of rows (records) and columns (attributes/fields). The primary components of any database are tables.
Creating databases, opening databases, displaying databases and tables, deleting databases and tables, viewing table structure, and inserting, deleting, updating, and retrieving records are among the fundamental MySQL activities.
Here are some basic SQL commands used in MySQL:
To create a database named ‘School’:
mysql> CREATE DATABASE School;
To use a database named ‘School’:
mysql> USE school ;
To show existing databases:
mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
To show tables in the currently selected database:
mysql> SHOW TABLES;
To view the structure of a table named ‘Student’:
mysql> DESCRIBE Student;
To delete a database named ‘School’:
mysql> DROP DATABASE School;
To delete a table named ‘Student’:
mysql> DROP TABLE Student;
To create a table named ‘mytable’ with columns and a primary key:
CREATE TABLE mytable (
id int unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
username varchar(100) NOT NULL,
email varchar(100) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);
To fetch data from a table (e.g., all columns from tblReceptionist):
SELECT * FROM tblReceptionist;
To connect to a MySQL server from the command line, you typically use the mysql command with username, password, and optionally host and database name:
mysql -u [username] -p -h [hostname] [database]
With over 20 years of experience, MySQL is regarded as a mature database that has been examined by engineers all over the world as open source software. Experts rely significantly on the extensive and authoritative MySQL Manual.