MySQL Notes

Having recently debugged a MySQL replication setup, I was having a hard time keeping track of which database was open in which mysql command line client, as since before the start of time the prompt has been a very terse  mysql> , giving no visual clue to which database is currently the default.

Fortunately, beginning with release 4.0.2 MySQL now provides a little-known option to set the prompt in a manner similar to that used in UNIX shells.

While browsing the online documentation I came across this snippet:

From MySQL 4.1.0, the attribute SERIAL can be used as an alias for BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT UNIQUE. This is compatibility feature.

I thought it was a joke when I first heard about it, but the MySQL command line client has this option where you can actually tell it you're stupid:

 mysql --i-am-a-dummy -uroot test