What are the best choices when designing the schema for a relational database? What is the rationale in deciding in favor of one and against some other alternative? Given the amount of vendor-specific recommendations, it is all too easy to overlook basic relational database fundamentals. In this second of two parts, author Philipp K. Janert presents an introduction to database normalization and to the five Normal Forms. He also discusses other possible uses for a database in a project, for example as a repository for configurational or logging data.

What are the best choices when designing the schema for a relational database? What is the rationale in deciding in favor of one and against some other alternative? Given the amount of vendor-specific recommendations, it is all too easy to overlook basic relational database fundamentals. In this first of two parts, author Philipp K. Janert talks about simple and complex datatypes, and about primary and foreign keys -- the plumbing that holds the entire database together.

Like PostgreSQL, MySQL can be accessed from many different languages, including C, C++, Java and Perl. Using the comprehensive C interface of MySQL, Neil Matthew and Richard Stones show us how to execute SQL statements in MySQL databases in the following sections from Chapter 5 on MySQL from Professional Linux Programming. They will look at both statements that return data, such as INSERT, and those that don't, such as UPDATE and DELETE. They will then write a simple program that retrieves data from the database.

Companies like doubleclick.net have made a lot of money serving banner ads on the Web. The service they provide is great, but why pay for something you can do yourself? In this article, enterprise Java consultants Javid Jamae and Kulvir Bhogal demonstrate how to create rotating banner ads using an all open-source environment: Apache Tomcat, MySQL, and the MM MySQL JDBC driver. First, they'll walk you through the necessary setup in Tomcat and MySQL, and then show you how to install the MM MySQL JDBC driver to allow a Java servlet running in Tomcat to communicate with MySQL.