Rating: 

Well, lucky me. When I attended the 2005 MySQL Users Conference in Santa Clara CA in April ’05, I received the “MySQL Cookbook” by Paul DuBois as a reward for early registration.

The day after I returned back to work from the conference, one of my co-workers came looking for some guidance in regards to a MySQL database issue he was having. His description sounded familiar to one of the recipes I skimmed in the cookbook. Sure enough, I found the resolution within two minutes, and had sent
another satisfied customer on his way.

The great aspect of this book is that it is written to provide solutions to over 315 real-world problems. Whenever I come up against an obstacle in regards to MySQL, I head straight to the table of contents and scan for a recipe that looks like it might be a match.

One topic I wish was covered somewhere in this text is the concept of derived tables, which are basically sub-queries used as tables in a join.

Take a look at the book description located at the following URL, and try out some of the recipes shown:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mysqlckbk/

The “MySQL Cookbook” and “MySQL in a Nutshell” books are permanent fixtures in my office … except for when my co-workers borrow them.

-Brett Berry
PERL/PHP/JavaScript/MySQL
http://www.BrettBerry.com