It’s a problem for my students who purchased the new Apple hardware that uses Apple Silicon because they can’t install a Docker MySQL instance. However, there is Homebrew formula that works on macOS Big Sur and the new Apple silicon. It supports:

• Intel Silicon: macOS Big Sur, Catalina, and Mojave
• Apple Silicon: macOS Big Sur

The Homebrew Formula does have conflicts that you may need to avoid. It is a solution for those with the new Apple silicon.

As always, I hope this helps those looking for a solution.

The idea of ACID transactions are a basic feature of SQL’s individual Data Manipulation Language (DML) commands, like the INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements. Transactions across two or more tables are a natural extension of ACID compliance features provided by DML commands. However, they require a structured programming approach, like a store procedure or like API implemented in an imperative language.

Surprisingly, transaction management wasn’t covered well in Alan Beaulieu’s Learning SQL because he only provided pseudo code logic. While I thought troubleshoot some broken MySQL SQL/PSM logic would be a good learning experience for students, it wasn’t. So, I wrote this sample code to show how to achieve an all or nothing transaction across four tables.

The code for this example on transaction management lets you perform the important tasks necessary to effect transaction …

Somebody asked me about how they could convert an XML file to a CSV file to upload into MySQL. They were asking the question based on an old Convert XML to CSV blog post from 2008. Amazing though that is, I had to explain the process no longer requires manual tasks, like calling Java files from the Apache XML Project. All they needed to do was use the Oxygen XML Editor, which is why I wrote this blog post.

For example, I had them use the same sample XML file from the old blog post (shown below) with one change. The encoding value needs to change from latin1 (ISO-8859-1) to unicode (UTF-8). Then, they should put it into a local Windows directory (mine went into the …

Some believe the most important part of SQL is the ability to query data. Queries typically retrieve data by joining many tables together into useful result sets. This tutorial takes the position that visibility into the data helps those new to SQL understand how joins work. To that end, the queries use Common Tabular Expressions (CTEs) instead of tables.

Default behavior of a JOIN without a qualifying descriptor is not simple because it may return:

• A CROSS JOIN (or Cartesian Product) when there is no ON or USING subclause, or
• An INNER JOIN when you use an ON or USING subclause.

The following query uses JOIN without a qualifier or an ON or USING subclause. It also uses two copies of the single CTE, which is more or less a derived table and the result of a subquery held in memory. This demonstrates the key …

MySQL membership conditions are in the MySQL 8 Documentation. They’re found in the 13.2.11.3 Subqueries with ANY, IN, or SOME section. The IN and =ANY operators both perform equality matches with one twist. The IN operator works with a set of values or a subquery but the =ANY operator only works with a subquery.

I created the digits, letters, and words tables for this example. They hold the following values respectively:

• The numbers table holds the values of 1, 2, 3, and 4
• The letters table holds the values of 'a', 'b', 'c', and 'd'
• The words table holds the values of 'Captain America', 'Iron …

While you can download MySQL as a DMG package, a number of users would prefer to install it as a Docker instance. You won’t find the macOS downloads on the same web site as other downloads. You can use the following macOS download site.

After installing Docker on your macOS, you can pull a copy of the current MySQL Server with the following command:

docker pull mysql/mysql-server

You should create a mysql directory inside your ~/Documents directory with this command:

mkdir ~/Documents/mysql

Then, you should use the cd command to change into the ~/Documents/mysql directory and run this command:

pwd

It should return the following directory: …

While I thought my instructions were clear, it appears there should have been more in my examples for using the MySQL MSI. A key thing that happened is that students opted not to install:

Samples and Examples 8.0.22

Unfortunately, they may not have read the Preface of Alan Beaulieu’s Learning SQL, 3rd Edition where he explains how to manually download the files from the MySQL web site. Here are those, very clear, instructions (pg. XV) with my additions in italics for the MySQL Shell:

First, you will need to launch the mysql command-line client or the mysqlsh command-line shell, and provide a password, and then perform the following steps:

1. Go to https://dev.mysql.com/doc/index-other.html and download the files for the …

I’m switching to MySQL and leveraging Alan Beaulieu’s Learning SQL as a supporting reference for my Database Design and Development course. While reviewing Alan’s Chapter 5: Querying Multiple Tables, I found his coverage of using self-joins minimal.

In fact, he adds a prequel_film_id column to the film table in the sakila database and then a single row to demonstrate a minimal self-join query. I wanted to show them how to view a series of rows interconnected by a self-join, like the following:

SELECT   f.title AS film
,        fp.title AS prequel
FROM     film f LEFT JOIN film fp
ON       f.prequel_id = fp.film_id
WHERE    f.series_name = 'Harry Potter'
AND      fp.series_name = 'Harry Potter'
ORDER BY f.series_number;

It returns the following result set:

 …

Having recently installed a fresh copy of MySQL 8.0.21 on Windows, I took careful note of parsing changes in the MySQL Shell. It was tedious that we lost multiple statement processing, which is supported in the MySQL Client and MySQL Workbench because it uses MySQL Client.

It was frustrating when I subsequently discovered that the MySQL Shell took away the ability to write log files by removing the TEE and NOTEE commands. I suspected that since MySQL Workbench was still using the MySQL Client that it should be in the code tree. In fact, the mysql.exe client is in this directory:

C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\bin

So, I immediately created a batch file to put the MySQL Client into my %PATH% environment variable when needed. I used this time tested DOS command: …

While I’m switching labs next term after more than a decade with more comprehensive lab set, I’m hoping the new exercises build the students’ core SQL skill set. Next term, I hope to see whether the change is successful. I’ve opted for using Alan Beaulieu’s Learning SQL: Generate, Manipulate, and Retrieve Data, 3rd Edition, because it’s a great book and uses the MySQL database.

One exercise that the students will lose is a data migration exercise from a badly designed common_lookup table to a well designed common_lookup table. The starting point is shown below on the left and the fixed version is on the right.

         …