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phpMyAdmin: MySQL Front-

end
Marc Delisle

phpMyAdmin development team

Marc@phpmyadmin.net

April 19, 2005

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Contents
•Introduction
•Interface overview
•Advanced features
•System management
•Q&A

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 Marc Delisle
(a.k.a. lem9)

• Network manager, web developer

• Made multi-language PMA (1998)
• Actively involved in PMA development
since 2001
• Author of Mastering phpMyAdmin for
Effective MySQL Management

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 Today’s demo

• Small airline system

• Master table: flights
• Reference tables: planes, pilots,
airports, status
• PDF schema generated by PMA

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 What is phpMyAdmin?

• Web-based MySQL Front-end

• Tries to keep up with MySQL evolution
• Cross-browser compatibility
• Available in 48 languages
• Official site: www.phpmyadmin.net

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 Why web-based?

• If applications are on a hosted server,

usually no direct access to MySQL
• Typical PMA users
– DB admin and/or web developers
– consultant (on-site, off-site)
– MySQL teaching

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 phpMyAdmin’s popularity
• Lycos’ 1-Click! site hosting plan (7 countries
in Europe, 3 million customers)
• Cpanel (popular web control panel)
• Included in most Apache/MySQL/PHP kits
(Linux, Windows, Mac, Novell Netware 6.5)
• Award: Best PHP application/tool by the
readers of PHP Magazine (2003, 2005)
• 3 to 10 downloads/minute

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 Authentication

• Single-user: hard-coded in config file

• Multi-user: HTTP- or cookie-based
• Multi-server setup
• Interface varies according to the logged-
in user’s privileges

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 Home page

• MySQL links (change password,create

db, show processes, full db export)
• PMA links (language, theme, charset)

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 Database View

• Table creation
• Multi-table operations (repair, optimize)
• Full-db search
• Multi-table query-by-example

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 Table View

• Structure change
• Data browsing, inserting, editing
• Searching
• Operations: change type, copy, rename
• Table export

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 Data navigation

• Paging
• Sort by column / by index
• Row highlighting
• Horizontal/vertical display

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 Special Fields Editing

• ENUM and SET

• DATE: calendar popup

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 Binary contents upload

• Available when editing a row

• Offered for all BLOB fields
• Size limits
– BLOB’s size
– web server’s upload limits

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 Index management

• At table's creation: one or many fields

• On table's structure: quick index buttons
• Index view
– Single-field indexes
– Multi-field indexes
– Index segments (size limit)

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 Importing data
• Formats supported
– SQL statements
– CSV file (interface to LOAD DATA INFILE)
• Location of data: local workstation or a
web-server directory
• On-the-fly decompression

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 Exporting data

• Formats: SQL, CSV, LaTeX, XML

• Native MS-Excel 97, MS-Excel 2000,
MS-Word 2000
• Split-file export
• Exporting partial results
• Saving on web server

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 Advanced features

• Relational system
• Multi-table query generator
• Query bookmarks
• System documentation
• MIME-based cell transformation

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 Linked-tables infrastructure

• Set of special tables containing meta-

data
• Prerequisite for almost every advanced
features
• Can be centrally installed from a script

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 Relation view

• Uses InnoDB foreign-key constraints

• Also available on non-InnoDB tables
• Gives access to foreign key information
at various places of the interface

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 Multi-table QBE

• For example, we want to know which

pilots are affected by delayed flights
• Choice of tables, criteria, column
display
• Automatic joins if relations are defined

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 Bookmarks

• Recorded on-demand
• Labeled
• Can be viewed, executed, erased
• Private/public
• Automatic execution ( = table name)

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 Query history

• Queries typed in the query box are kept

in the linked-tables infrastructure
• By default, last 25 queries
• Can be edited or executed
• Available from the Query Window

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 PDF schema editing

• Page planning
• Available in db view / Operations
• Creation, automatic layout
• Visual editor
• Options (colors, grid, paper size, dict.)

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MIME-based transformations

• Each cell is transformed at browse time

• Meta-data about
– MIME-type
– Type of transformation
– Transformation options (ie image size)

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 Some transformations

• Clickable thumbnail (.png, .jpeg)

• Image/text link
• Date formatting
• Subtext
• External application

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 Server View

• Database statistics
• Server status / query statistics
• User account management
• Process management

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 Account management

• Global privileges / resource limits

• Database-specific privileges
• Table-/ column-specific privileges
• Change password
• Copy user

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