Setting Up the world Database


The world.sql file contains sample data for a world database that you can play with. You can download this file from http://dev.mysql.com/doc/.

The sample data used in the world database is Copyright Statistics Finland, http://www.stat.fi/worldinfigures.

To load the contents of the world.sql file into MySQL, use the following procedure:

  1. Change directory to where the world.sql file is located

    If your current directory is not the same as the location of the world.sql file, use a cd command to change location.

  2. Connect to the MySQL server using the mysql program

    At your command-line prompt, issue this command:

    shell> mysql -u root -p
    

    This command connects to the server using the MySQL root account to make sure that you'll have permission to create the world database. The --p option tells mysql to prompt you for the root password. Enter the password when prompted. (Remember that the MySQL root account is not the same as the operating system root account and probably will have a different password.)

  3. Create the world database and select it as the default database:

    In the mysql program, issue the following statements:

    mysql> CREATE DATABASE world;
    mysql> USE world;
    
  4. Load the contents of world.sql into the world database

    Issue a SOURCE command to tell mysql to read and process the contents of world.sql:

    mysql> SOURCE world.sql;
    

    You'll see quite a bit of output as mysql reads queries from the world.sql file and executes them.

After mysql finishes processing the world.sql file, try this statement:

mysql> SHOW TABLES;
+-----------------+
| Tables_in_world |
+-----------------+
| City            |
| Country         |
| CountryLanguage |
+-----------------+

The output should list all three of the tables shown. Depending on your server configuration, SHOW TABLES may display the table names in lowercase. If so, use lowercase names whenever you refer to the tables by name later.

The world tables contain the following types of information:

To see what columns each table contains, use DESCRIBE. For example:

mysql> DESCRIBE Country;
mysql> DESCRIBE City;
mysql> DESCRIBE CountryLanguage;