[SOLVED] MySQL quirks

[lampstax]

Hey guys,

 

I just blew an interview because of a question:

 

"Please name some quirks specific to MySQL.  What problem would they potentially cause and how you would prevent them?"

 

Needless to say, my idiotic stumbling response costed me the interview.  So hopefully we can get a list of quirky wierd MySQL behaviors to help other future interviewees or just save someone alot of time and headaches.

 

This post is mainly for MySQL gods to chime in while us mortal worship and learn.    LOL.  So please, if you know of quirky complex join behavior specific to MySQL and not other dbs, post them up, but please no question if you just want to ask how to do LEFT JOIN on two tables (unless there's quirkyness to your query!).

[Mchl]

If by "quirks" they mean differences from standard SQL, they're all listed in manual (accessible to mortals as well as gods)

 

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/compatibility.html

[lampstax]

Hmm .. very likely thats what they meant. 

 

I was thinking along the line of buggy MySQL only issues, random made up example of a quirk would be something like: 

 

MAX() returns all rows when used in a complex joined with 2 LEFT JOIN and 3 RIGHT JOIN and 1 UPSIDE DOWN JOIN

[Mchl]

I doubt they're asking about bugs, because as far as I know, none of known bugs at this time cause incorrect data to be selected.

And besides, bug list changes from version to version, and they can't expect you to know all of them.

 

Another thing that might be interesting is what limits MySQL databases

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/restrictions.html

[lampstax]

Very very cool link Mchl.

 

Thanks!