MySQLTalk.org

Manikandan Narayanan · Guest

Hi All, I posted the message below to the MySQL docs forum. May be I
should have posted it in this mailing list instead.. Would be
interested to get feedbacks on the suggestions below.

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Hi,
I find the MySQL reference manual in the web very useful as I am a
newbie, but I also find it too overwhelming (with detail).

I understand that details are necessary to make the specifications
precise. However, there should be some workaround to make the
information less overwhelming and hence quickly accessible/readable.
Here are a few suggestions that I would be interested to know if
people have thought about before.
1) Each command has a syntax with several keywords. If there are links
from each keyword to the text describing the keyword, it would
accelerate learning new keywords in a command. For eg., I want to know
what "having" does in a 'select' command, right now I search for the
'having' keyword in the reference page for 'select'. It would be nice
to quickly go to the 'having' section in the 'select' reference page.
2) User comments are helpful but they add another level of
overwhelming detail. Ratings for user comments (for eg. as done in vim
editor tips in vim website) can help newbies look only at the top
rated comments and ignore all others.

While I am at it, let me also ask a newbie question: Is there any way
to look up the syntax of a mysql command from inside mysql prompt?
Right now, I access the mysql reference manual in the web everytime I
want to know a new command. Are there easier ways to do this?

Thanks so much,
Mani