Connecting to MySQL Database through PERL

FAQ: How to connect to MySQL database through PERL.


SOLUTION:
1. Install MySQL database. MySQL community server comes free of cost and is distributed under GNU General Public License.

2. I would instead recommend installing a package called WAMP server which provides MySQL community server, Apache server and PHP. It also provides many effective tools like PHPMyAdmin which can be used for database administration. Also WAMP server comes free of cost and is distributed under GNU General Public License.

3. To check if the MySQL server is running, execute:
telnet 3306
E.G: # telnet 127.0.0.1 3306

4. I would also recommend you to also install SQLYog. It is a very light and effective tool to monitor and manage MySQL database. Again it also comes free of cost and is distributed under GNU General Public License.

5. Create a database in MySQL, a non-root user and give it a password.

6. Install ‘DBI’ perl module through ‘PPM’

7. Install ‘DBD::Mysqlpp” perl module through ‘PPM’

8. You are all set to connect to MySQL database. While connecting make sure that database is already created and you are connecting through a valid user and with correct credentials. To see a sample script execute following on command prompt:
# perldoc DBD::Mysqlpp


REFERENCES:
1. http://dbi.perl.org/
2. # perldoc DBD::Mysqlpp


AUTHOR: Parag Kalra
Email-ID: paragkalra@gmail.com

Displaying "non-English" characters using PHP & MySQL

Many times we intend to display "non-English" characters say Hindi language on the web-page using PHP & MySQL. Here's the trick:

1. Set column, table & database collation to "utf8_unicode_ci". You can use PHPMyAdmin for that purpose.

2. Use following meta tag in the php page:

meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"

3. And while establishing connection with the database make sure you do the following:
$chs1="SET NAMES utf8";
myquery($chs1);

$chs2="SET CHARACTER SET utf8";
myquery($chs2);

function myquery($var) {
$rval=mysql_query($var);
return $rval;
}

Resource:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset.html
http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,235410.msg1095028.html#msg1095028

Important commands:
mysql> show character set;
mysql> show collation ;
mysql> show global variables;

MySQL script to create & drop databases !!!

#===============================================================================
# FILE: alter_dbs.sql
# DESCRIPTION: To drop and recreate the databases
# AUTHOR: Parag Kalra (), paragkalra@gmail.com, www.paragkalra.com
# CREATED: Sunday 18 January 2009 07:00:29 IST IST
#===============================================================================


#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Dropping the databases if they exists
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS `some_database `;

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Creating databases
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CREATE DATABASE `some_database `;