These days, I mostly program in PHP with MySQL as the database, which is just fine by me. I have had a long-time interest in MySQL (SQL in general), and after several steady months of programming in PHP, I must say I have really come into the language and developed a fondness for it. All that being said, I still enjoy using and learning the MySQL Shell in Python mode. As Database Developers, we often need the LAST INSERT ID value from a previous INSERT statement on a column that has the AUTO_INCREMENT attribute. MySQL Shell has a get_auto_increment_value() method we can call against a Shell object result and retrieve that value. Continue reading and see examples of the MySQL Shell get_auto_increment_value() method used in Python mode…
Database
PHP empty() function use with MySQL NULL
PHP provides a handy function, empty(), that is used to determine whether a variable is empty. Perhaps that is a bit confusing to someone unfamiliar with the empty() function and I can see how. In this blog post, I will cover: what empty() means in PHP, what the empty() function does, and a use case pairing up empty() with the PHP ternary operator conditional construct. Both used in combination with the MySQL NULL value. Continue reading and see examples of empty()…
PHP MySQL BLOB PDF: Display in Browser
In Use MySQL BLOB column with PHP to store .pdf file, I covered an example of how to store a .pdf file in the actual database table using the MySQL BLOB datatype and PHP. Now that we have .pdf’s stored in the database, how do we display them in the browser? This blog post answers that exact question. Continue reading to see a working example using PHP…
Use MySQL BLOB column with PHP to store .pdf file
Like always I am sharing new things I learn here on my blog. I was recently working on a requirement for a LAMP stack web application reporting dashboard in which I needed to store – and eventually – retrieve a .pdf file. I have read in several places (this fantastic book is a great resource) that a viable option is storing images or documents (.pdf in this case) in the actual database table as opposed to on the server file system. MySQL has the BLOB datatype that can be used to store files such as .pdf, .jpg, .txt, and the like. In this blog post, I cover how I accomplished uploading and storing the actual .pdf file in a BLOB column in MySQL using PHP. Any corrections, tips, pointers, and recommendations for best practices are always welcome. We all learn as we go!!!
Use MySQL UNIQUE Constraint in phpMyAdmin
The MySQL UNIQUE constraint is often used in a column definition in which we need each value for that column to be distinct from the others. Perhaps it is an email column for an on-line registration form and we want to ensure that users cannot register twice for an account using the same email. Whatever the case may be, UNIQUE is there to help us ensure this type of data integrity or business requirement. What if the target table already exists and you determine you need to add a UNIQUE constraint to an existing column? In this post, I will cover 2 ways you can implement a UNIQUE constraint on existing columns using the phpMyAdmin web interface…