MariaDB Non-Spatial Reader/Writer

This format replaces the MySQL Reader/Writer. It still uses terminology specific to MySQL, since MariaDB is known to work well with MySQL Servers.

Compatibility

MariaDB is a binary drop-in replacement of the same MySQL version. For example,

  • MySQL 5.1 is compatible with MariaDB 5.1, MariaDB 5.2, MariaDB 5.3
  • MySQL 5.5 will be compatible with MariaDB 5.5

This chapter uses the MySQL. For detailed information, see MariaDB Versus MySQL: Compatibility.

MySQL Overview

MySQL®1MySQL is a registered trademark of MySQL AB in the United States, the European Union and other countries. is a well-known DataBase Management System (DBMS) that provides various types of tables for different database applications.

The MySQL reader and writer plug-in enables FME to read and write attribute data stored in a MySQL database. There are two versions of the reader and writer:

  • MySQL, which includes the spatial extension and supports geometry features, and
  • MySQL Non-Spatial, which is an attribute-only version that ignores geometry. This reader and writer communicates directly with the MySQL C API interface for maximum throughput.

This chapter assumes familiarity with MySQL, the table types, column types, available server daemons, indexing mechanisms and connection parameters.

Reader Overview

FME considers a MySQL dataset to be a database containing a collection of relational tables, and a table to be an FME feature type with each row corresponding to at least one FME feature.

Tables schemas must be defined in the FME workspace before they can be read.

Arbitrary WHERE clauses and joins are fully supported, as well as an entire arbitrary SQL SELECT statement. The basic reading process involves opening a connection to the database, querying metadata, and querying data. The data is read by submitting SQL queries and parsing the returned result sets.

Please note that MySQL functionality that only exists in the MySQL road map and not in practice (such as server side cursors and views) are not currently integrated into this reader.

Writer Overview

The writer module stores both geometry and attributes into a MySQL database, and has the following capabilities:

  • Transaction Support: The MySQL writer provides transaction support that eases the data loading process. Occasionally, a data load operation terminates prematurely due to data difficulties. The transaction support provides a mechanism for reloading corrected data without data loss or duplication. Performance can also be improved by reducing transactional overhead for multiple small queries such as inserts.
  • Index Creation: The MySQL writer can set up and populate indexes as part of the loading process. By default, no indexes are created. Columns can be individually indexed. Composite column indexes are not supported at this time.
  • Insert Binding: By default, the MySQL writer uses prepared statements and query parameter binding ensure speedy data loading.