Answer - The technical features of MySQL For advanced technical information, see section 7 MySQL Language Reference. MySQL is a client/server system that consists of a multi-threaded SQL server that supports different backends, several different client programs and libraries, administrative tools, and a programming interface. We also provide MySQL as a multi-threaded library which you can link into your application to get a smaller, faster, easier to manage product. MySQL has a lot of contributed software available. It is very likely that you will find that your favorite application/language already supports MySQL. The official way to pronounce MySQL is ``My Ess Que Ell'' (not MY-SEQUEL). But we try to avoid correcting people who say MY-SEQUEL. The Main Features of MySQL The following list describes some of the important characteristics of MySQL: Fully multi-threaded using kernel threads. That means it can easily use multiple CPUs if available. C, C++, Eiffel, Java, Perl, PHP, Python and Tcl APIs. Works on many different platforms. Many column types: signed/unsigned integers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 bytes long, FLOAT, DOUBLE, CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT, BLOB, DATE, TIME, DATETIME, TIMESTAMP, YEAR, SET, and ENUM types. Very fast joins using an optimized one-sweep multi-join. Full operator and function support in the SELECT and WHERE parts of queries. Example: mysql> SELECT CONCAT(first_name, " ", last_name) FROM tbl_name WHERE income/dependents > 10000 AND age > 30; SQL functions are implemented through a highly optimized class library and should be as fast as they can get! Usually there shouldn't be any memory allocation at all after query initialization. Full support for SQL GROUP BY and ORDER BY clauses. Support for group functions (COUNT(), COUNT(DISTINCT), AVG(), STD(), SUM(), MAX() and MIN()). Support for LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN with ANSI SQL and ODBC syntax. You can mix tables from different databases in the same query (as of Version 3.22). A privilege and password system that is very flexible and secure and allows host-based verification. Passwords are secure because all password traffic is encrypted when you connect to a server. ODBC (Open-DataBase-Connectivity) support for Win32 (with source). All ODBC 2.5 functions and many others. For example, you can use MS Acce