Relational Tables Concept.

[Fahid]

Hello all !

First of all, I am a newbie to MySQL, infact to databases, so if I say something wrong, please point it, and accept my apology.

Let's move on.........

 

I Just want to know if MySQL support Relational DataBase Managment Systems(RDBMS).

I just remember a thing about MS Access (I learnt in my high school days).

You can relate feilds from one table to another. And it's really a useful feature.

If you have changed a field from one table, other table will change it automatically.

 

I am looking for this feature in MySQL, but looking at option provided in PHPmyadmin v2.6.0, I seems like this useful feature is not available in MySQL.

Is it available ?

If yes, then how can we define a relation between same fields from morethan one table ?

[akitchin]

you can assign foreign keys using the InnoDB engine. i haven't read enough to know whether changing the value in the parent table changes the value in the child table, but i DO know you can specify delete activity (Cascade deletion, Nullify, etc.).

 

have a look in the MySQL manual for InnoDB documentation. i think there's a whole chapter on the engine.

[daiwa]

Well i think first your answer is yes mysql is a relational database if you want it to be. but does not enforce foreign key constraits or support the term foreign key but you can do anything you'd want with it including being relational

[Fahid]

Thanks akitchin and daiwa.

Now I can read the NySQL manual for InnoDB engine to find out more, thanks for guidance.