[thelist] MySQL Limitations

paul at one-pla.net paul at one-pla.net
Mon Feb 11 15:34:01 CST 2002


>The only reason you may want to consider switching to oracle is if you need
>to do more complex queries than MySQL can handle, but even in that area,
>the latest versions are fast catching up with oracle.

To be specific, MySQL up to 3.22 (circa 2000) does not support:

* subselects (for example: SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE myvar IN (SELECT var2 FROM ...) )

* transactions and commit/rollback (important when all statements must execute or none must, as with financial transactions; there are some partial workarounds for this)

* foreign keys and referential integrity

* stored procedures and triggers (this is in the works)

* views (this is also in the works)

* record level privileges and locking

* '--' as a comment (although beginning with 3.23.3, DuBois says, '-- ' is supported)

(from Paul DuBois' "MySQL" (2000) New Riders, pp.170-176. ISBN: 0735709211. An excellent book.)

I haven't been keeping up with the latest, so some or all of that may be different in more recent versions.

-Paul Sciortino






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