sscasc@tumkur to communicate with the mysql serveryou will need languageand sql (structured query languageis the language of choice for most modern multiuserrelational databases sql provides the syntax and language constructs needed to talk to relational databases in standardizedcross-platform structured way we discuss how to use the sql language the version of sql used by mysql follows the ansi (american national standards institutestandardmeaning that it must support the major keywords ( selectupdatedeleteinsertwhereetc as defined in the standard as you can see by the names of these keywordssql is the language that makes it possible to manipulate the data in database first we have to install database server and run it there are number of client applications available to connect to the database serverthe most popular and most widely available being the mysql command-line client and also phpmyadmin in case of xamp or wamp regardless of the type of client you chooseyou will always need to specify the usernameand the host we are connecting to to connect to database using the clientwe have to enter information similar to the following line mysql userrootpassword =my_password host=localhost once you are successfully connectedyou will get the mysqlprompt this means we are connected to the mysql database server and not to local computer' operating system mysql data types when creating table in databasethe type and size of each field must be defined field is similar to php variable except that it can store only the specified type and size of data in given field mysql supports three main groups of data typesnumericdate/timeand string for full details see the mysql manual at numeric data types you can store numbers in mysql in many waysas shown by the following table choose the data type most suited for the type of numbers needed to store in table type max value (signed/unsignedtinyint smallint , to , mediumint / to if unsigned , , , , or to if unsigned int , , , , , , bigint , , , , , , to , , , , , , float float smallest non zero value+ largest value+ smallest non zero value+ sp_python programming