Craig Nelson's List: Creating and Managing Tables

"MySQL supports various of table types or storage engines to allow you to optimize your database. The table types are available in MySQL are:"

"MySQL supports IF NOT EXISTS after CREATE TABLE statement to prevent you from error to create table which already exists on the database server. table_name is the name of table you would like to create. After that, you can define a set of columns which is usually in this form: column_name data_type(size) [NOT] NULL. And finally, you can specify the storage engine type you prefer to use for the table. MySQL supports various storage engines such as InnoDB, MyISAM... If you don't explicit declare storage engine type, MySQL will use MyISAM by default. "

"Database indexes help to speed the retrieval of data from MySQL database server faster. When retrieving the data, MySQL first check whether the indexes exists; If yes it will use index to select exact physical corresponding rows without scanning the whole table. "

"Beside creating table, MySQL allows you to alter existing table structures with a lot of options. Here are the ALTER TABLE statement:"

"Short List of MySQL Commands"

"Once you have your table data organized, the next step is to figure out the data type. There are three main types : text, numbers, and Dates/Times. Choosing the column types specifies what information can or can't be stored in a table cell. Using the most correct option for each column is important as it may affect the database's overall performance. "

"Recent versions of MySQL have implemented support for foreign keys through the InnoDB table engine. We explain how it works.

Referential integrity is an important concept in database design. The term refers to a state when all the references in a database are valid and no invalid links exist between the various tables that make up the system. When referential integrity exists, any attempt to link to a record which does not already exist will fail; this helps prevent user errors, producing a more accurate (and useful) database."