The intention behind MariaDB is to release free and stable, but very similar, alternative to MySQL. The Maria storage engine is a crash-safe version of the MyISAM table type but Maria still doesn’t use transactions (like InnoDB). Version 1.5 of MariaDB is now in beta, with the focus on stability. Version 2 of Maria should include transactions and ACID compliance. Version 2.5 is where the developes intend to really focus on performance. This may seem a little backwards, but it’s much easier to retroactively improve software performance than it is its quality.

• Click Select All under Export to backup every table.
• Check Add DROP TABLE under SQL options > Structure so that the recreation of the database wipes out the existing database (note that you may not always want to do this).
• Check either zipped or gzipped under Save as file. This will automatically check the Save as file box for you.

Once you’ve done this, click on Go. You’ll then be prompted to save the downloaded file to your computer, as you would any file downloaded through a browser. The result is a text file of the SQL commands used to recreate the entire database, from creating the tables to populating them. If you checked a compression type, it’ll be a compressed text file. You can now use this file as a saved backup of your database, edit the commands if needed, or remake the database from it. To do that…

Load the version of phpMyAdmin that’s running on the destination server, for example http://www.example.com/phpMyAdmin. This really must be running behind a restricted area (i.e., requiring authentication to access it), preferably over a secure connection. Then click on the Import link or tab, depending upon what options are presented. Then click the Browse button to select the database backup file (the one already created, now stored on your computer). Then click Go. That’s all there is to it!

This works for me without fail probably 95% of the time. The biggest issue I run across is that the upload limit in the Import tab is 2MB. For large databases, like my forum, one text file—even compressed—is way too large. In such situations, I open up the SQL text file in a text editor, then copy and paste the commands into separate files until they are all under 2MB when compressed. At that point, it’s just a matter of doing multiple imports, one for each file.

As I said, I get asked about this a lot, but it’s really quite simple, thanks to phpMyAdmin. Let me know what questions or comments you may have!

UPDATE: I’ve just posted the rough table of contents. My apologies for the delay on this and my sincerest thanks to those interested in the book!

First of all, to be absolutely clear, the book will not teach PHP and MySQL, or HTML and CSS. The book will have to assume knowledge of those, making this entire book much more of an application of the technologies kind of guide (like the example chapters in my PHP and MySQL books). However, most readers will likely still learn some aspects of PHP, MySQL, HTML, and CSS that they didn’t know before. Also, this book will not be in Peachpit’s QuickStart or QuickPro series, in which specific topics are introduced, discussed, then demonstrated in step-by-step format. This book will be in New Riders’ Voices That Matter series (New Riders is a sibling publisher to Peachpit). That format does away with the steps and redundancy of showing the code in both step-by-step and entire script formats. This series will allow me to go into more detail on the why’s of the code, as well as include more, and prettier, images.

My hope, depending upon space constraints, is to use two separate examples in order to best describe every step of the way. One example would be content that’s delivered immediately and online. This could be PDFs or just subscriptions/access to content. The other example would be content that’s physical and shipped at a later point. The differences between the two are significant because:

1. You cannot actually charge a user until the item they purchase ships.
2. When that’s the case, additional administrative pages are required to indicate that the order has shipped.

So the online content example would use an immediate payment system and delivery of the content. The physical product example would place a hold on the user’s card, to be charged when the order ships.

The online content would also have a simpler database design; the physical products would be require a more complex design.

I also plan on using two different payment gateways, so you can get a sense of how different gateways work. One would be the popular PayPal, the second is yet to be determined.

My intention is to use only procedural programming, which will be accessible to the largest body of readers. The only exception would be if I decide to use a framework, like the Zend Framework, for one of the examples. If I do go that route, basic OOP would have to be used, although it should still be understandable by most readers.

Of course, being e-commerce, security will be discussed often, at length, and in detail. This includes everything from hosting issues to HTTPs connections to storing data.

I would hope to implement search functionality. As for other features, like customers being able to review items, make purchases without registering, etc., will probably have to be briefly discussed instead of demonstrating. Again, what I’m trying to accomplish is coverage of the most important information from a couple of view points.

So, what do you think? What would you like to see or not see? Any question and comment is welcome and much appreciated, just be aware that I need to approve comments before they appear, for security and integrity reasons. Thanks!

If you haven’t used a visual database design tool before, you’ll need to spend some time reading up on it. The application can be used to design and then create new databases or create documentation for existing ones. This kind of software is especially useful if you:

• prefer visual design tools
• may need to create databases on one server, then recreate them on another
• want to package along an excellent resource when turning a site over to a client

MySQL Workbench is currently in an alpha release. That means not all of its features are quite there yet and the documentation will need to be much improved (some of the links on MySQL’s pages seem to be inconsistent). But if you have some spare time, you may want to play with this now. If you don’t have the time, or prefer more developed software, keep the MySQL Workbench in mind for later in the year.

On MySQL’s Web site, you can find links to download the software for Windows and Linux. An alpha version for Mac OS X was released just before Christmas. I didn’t find any obvious links to it on the MySQL Web site, but did find them at this post.