Scott - PHP: MySQL & PHP Programming Guide: Web Development, Database & Hacking

MySQL is also an open source database that is dependent on the relationships between those tables. Hence it is called a Relational Database and managing it is Relational Database Management System and it is one of the most popularly used RDBMS after Oracle.

Like PHP MySQL has its own important characteristics listing a couple of them:

1. Architectural Design : MySQL has a client/server architecture that contains the MySQL server that acts a medium to which the client and server interact with. This interaction can be with multiple clients. A client could be an application that has connected with the server for retrieving data. These could be distributed over multiple computers or can be from the same computer i.e. the client and the server can be working from the same computer or they can be from different computers spit over the borders. High access of the server can be provided for various clients to access.
2. High Speed : Since most of the tables in the database are connected with the correct joins the data can be retrieved quite fast. And this is the most important feature of MySQL that makes it so popular.
3. Independent of the platform : Like PHP even MySQL server can run on multiple operating systems such as Linux, MAC, UNIX, windows etc.
4. High compatibility of SQL and MySQL : SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It is a programming language which MySQL database supports. Through Structured Query Language we can create databases i.e. create the tables in the database, create their relationships and also the data and using the same language we can manipulate the data. Using the same for structured query language we can also write statements that are called as queries that can be used to retrieve the data. So since the same language can be used for everything it becomes easy the learner to just learn this one language and manipulate the whole system easily.
5. Supports Open Database Connectivity aka (ODBC ): MySQL through Database Connectivity (ODBC) provides the connection of its database to be used by the programming language that the operating system of that computer uses.
6. Existence of two dimensional data : There are many systems such as geographic information system that use this mySQL as it supports two - dimensional data.
7. Use of multiple APIs : API stands for Application Program Interfaces. MySQL can be developed using many of the APIs individually which gives the developers high flexibility. Few of such Application Program Interfaces are C, Java, CPP, Perl, PHP, Python etc. which can also be the client side program.

PHP and MySQL are highly independent languages that can be combined for various and amazing outputs. This is mostly done by the web developers. In all the web applications there are two parts that the web developer needs to take care of the user interface or also known as the front end and the database part which is also known as the back end. So it is highly clear by now that which plays the role where.

So, PHP will help the developer to develop the front end and the backend can be developed using mySQL. There are many programs that can be written to do tasks using PHP. PHP helps the web developer a lot as it is highly flexible. By flexible it means that using coding of PHP the developer can display the web page as the simplest task and also check the data that the user is entering via the HTML form.

These checks can be of high value as they will filter all the unnecessary data that will in turn help in the performance of the database which is related to the application. This gives the application developer undue advantage. MySQL with PHP can also perform easy and complicated data manipulations via a high end web page which is easy to build, easy to access and easy to use.