General Question About Stored Procedures

[Christopher Bergin]

In chapter 3, I couldn't seem to get the exercise to work successfully when trying to invoke a MySQL stored function. I received a syntax error on line 1 even though I copy and pasted the author's script. I use a hosting site to complete the exercises and the version of MySQL that they support is 5.0.91-log and myPHPAdmin version 2.8.0.1. I can only interact directly with the database through myPHPAdmin.

When I contacted the customer support at the hosting service, they tersely replied that they don't support stored procedures through myPHPAdmin. Has anyone heard of this limitation?

[HartleySan]

Yes, my hosting service has the same limitation. In general, I've found the following limitations to be in effect for almost all shared hosting:

1) No stored procedures

2) No socket access

3) Limited number of DBs that can be created

 

And probably more. It all comes down to sharing a host with a bunch of other accounts and not having root access.

As a result though, I've started used prepared statements for everything instead of stored procedures.

They can be slightly slower, but they're more flexible, just as secure, and easier to code in a way because all the logic is kept on the PHP side.

[Larry]

Christopher, remember that if you're limited by your hosting company, you can install everything on your computer (for free), which would allow you to learn and practice these things.

[Christopher Bergin]

at some point, I will use a local setup to develop but right now, I'm just going through the exercises and for the most part, I don't encounter environment related issues. My Mac is 10 years old so I was planning to purchase a new one before installing the server setup. Hopefully by this spring.