Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Summary
Good planning is certainly key to developing an efficient database. However, as you can
see from all of the examples of how to use the
ALTER TABLE
statement, MySQL is mal-
leable enough that a database and its tables can be reshaped without much trouble. Just be
sure to make a backup before restructuring a database, and work from a copy of a table be-
fore altering it. Check your work and the data when you're finished, before committing the
changes made.
With all of this in mind, after having had some experience altering tables in this chapter,
you should feel comfortable in creating tables, as you now know that they don't have to be
perfect from the beginning. You should also have a good sense of the options available with
columns and how to set them. And you should have a basic understanding of indexes, how
they're used, and how they may be created and changed.
If you have found this chapter confusing, though, it may be that you need more experience
using tables with data. In the next part of this topic, you will get plenty of experience work-
ing with tables, inserting data into columns, and changing the data. When you see how the
data comes together, you'll have a better understanding of how to structure a table and how
to set columns in preparation for data. You'll have a better appreciation of how multiple
tables may be joined together to get the results you want.
