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"MySQL query"

I'm just having a play about with MySQL, and have a question about the types for the fields.

Which 'type' would be best for a field where the maximum about of characters could be stored?? Such as with this Forum, what type of field is this post stored in??

Thank you.

Oh yeah, sorry, 65,536 characters.

However, you could go for 4,294,967,296 if you use LONGTEXT. That's 4gb of text, heh, in case you were wondering.

Thanks for the info ajg. I am sticking with Oracle 9i as its the same enviroment as they have at Uni. I only need the simple SQL Plus editor, but I have Oracle working now and really it doesnt slow the system down at all. The Commit charge is alot higher but the CPU isnt used any more than usual.

I know Oracle is a bit overkill for what I need, but it works and its familar to me. I only need it up until mid Jan, so I can un-install it then.

Although there is no comparison between Oracle and MySQL, unless you want a fully loaded transactional database server Oracle seems a bit of an overkill for a home system.

Oracle is capable of millions of transactions a second, is fully multitreaded, scaleable and tuneable and as a result is the worlds number one database server.

But all this comes at a price and obviously it will eat system resources. My previous contracts have been DBA roles, as part of teams designing and building databases and wouldnt dream of putting this on a home system unless there was a real need. Its like driving your ferrari to visit your nextdoor neighbour. Obviously its great to do, but is it really necessary?

Its capable of number-crunching its way through millions of transactions a second and and therefore is the backbone to most banks and such with its own server and several CPUs dedicated to it.

MySQL is a great idea. It takes up very little space, its free, takes up little system resources (compared to Oracle). But at the same time is easy to install and fully relational; a great place to start with database learning.

If you are deadset on using Oracle, there is a version called Oracle Lite available free from their website. Haven't used it much, so I don't know how 'Lite' it is, but I'd imagine its more geared towards home use. I know its only about 200meg to download.



>> Is there a limit to how many characters 'TEXT' can hold?
> Nope.

I was pretty sure there was an upper limit, although I cant remember what it is offhand. The database cant just allocate infinate storage space. Someone?

cjh wrote:
> I havn't used MySQL a hell of a lot on my machine, but when I tried it
> a while back, it never slowed my system down, or took longer to load
> up or anything like that.

I might give MySQL a go then, as Oracle 9i makes my system load up slower. As once its in XP Oracle then starts to load up all its stuff which takes about 30-60 seconds.

cjh wrote:
> Sorry, doesn't say.
>
> Turbonutter wrote:
> TEXT. Or BLOB, but that just causes complications.
>
> Is there a limit to how many characters 'TEXT' can hold?


Nope.

I havn't used MySQL a hell of a lot on my machine, but when I tried it a while back, it never slowed my system down, or took longer to load up or anything like that.

Just wondering how much resources does MySQL use? Oracle needs alot of resources and makes my commit charge go from a 90 to over 400 on the reboot. I dont need to be using SQL all the time when my system is on so I only really need a basic package. If MySQL used alot less resources than Oracle I may think about giving it a go.

cjh wrote:
> I got MYSQL from mysql.com
>
> However, at this time I'm using the one from my Host, and am unsure as
> to the version they are using.... hold on I'll go see.

Ok thanks. But I have finally installed Oracle 9i. 2.73Gb and nearly 64,000 files later it finally works on my system. Its about the 6th install I have done and I am now happy it works. I only need a simple SQL program so that I can put a database in it and store it, and then run some queries through it. Most of Oracle I wont need, but I needed SQL. I have had to make do without any form of SQL at home for a few weeks and couldnt go on, as I could write queries but had no way of testing them at home.

I'll have a look at mysql.com and see whats on there.

Sorry, doesn't say.

Turbonutter wrote:
> TEXT. Or BLOB, but that just causes complications.

Is there a limit to how many characters 'TEXT' can hold?

I got MYSQL from mysql.com

However, at this time I'm using the one from my Host, and am unsure as to the version they are using.... hold on I'll go see.