Book excerpt: Quickly get up to speed with MariaDB—the leading, drop-in replacement for MySQL, through this practical tutorial About This Book Get to know the basic SQL queries so you can quickly start using MariaDB Take control of your data through the advanced features of MariaDB Exploit the full potential of MariaDB's exclusive features through quick, practical examples Who This Book Is For If you don't know the SQL language, but you want to quickly jump into the SQL world and learn how to use MariaDB, or if you already know how to use MySQL but you want to go further, then this book is ideal for you. What You Will Learn Install and configure MariaDB Create databases, tables, and indexes Import and export data from and to external files Work with views and virtual columns Create, read, update, and delete records in your database Use dynamic columns Set up a powerful full-text search system Access your external data from MariaDB through the CONNECT engine In Detail This book will take you through all the nitty-gritty parts of MariaDB, right from the creation of your database all the way to using MariaDB's advanced features. At the very beginning, we show you the basics, that is, how to install MariaDB. Then, we walk you through the databases and tables of MariaDB, and introduce SQL in MariaDB. You will learn about all the features that have been added in MariaDB but are absent in MySQL. Moving on, you'll learn to import and export data, views, virtual columns, and dynamic columns in MariaDB. Then, you'll get to grips with full-text searches and queries in MariaDb. You'll also be familiarized with the CONNECT storage engine. At the end of the book, you'll be introduced to the community of MariaDB. Style and approach This is a complete guide that uses concrete examples to help you understand and exploit the full potential of MariaDB.