The temporary tables could be very useful in some cases to keep temporary data. The most important thing that should be known for temporary tables is that they will be deleted when the current client session terminates.
As stated earlier, temporary tables will only last as long as the session is alive. If you run the code in a PHP script, the temporary table will be destroyed automatically when the script finishes executing. If you are connected to the MySQL database server through the MySQL client program, then the temporary table will exist until you close the client or manually destroy the table.
The following program is an example showing you the usage of the temporary table. The same code can be used in PHP scripts using the mysqli_query() function.
mysql> CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE SalesSummary (
-> product_name VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL
-> , total_sales DECIMAL(12,2) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0.00
-> , avg_unit_price DECIMAL(7,2) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0.00
-> , total_units_sold INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0
);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> INSERT INTO SalesSummary
-> (product_name, total_sales, avg_unit_price, total_units_sold)
-> VALUES
-> ('cucumber', 100.25, 90, 2);
mysql> SELECT * FROM SalesSummary;
+--------------+-------------+----------------+------------------+
| product_name | total_sales | avg_unit_price | total_units_sold |
+--------------+-------------+----------------+------------------+
| cucumber | 100.25 | 90.00 | 2 |
+--------------+-------------+----------------+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
When you issue a SHOW TABLES command, then your temporary table would not be listed out in the list. Now, if you will log out of the MySQL session and then you will issue a SELECT command, then you will find no data available in the database. Even your temporary table will not exist.
By default, all the temporary tables are deleted by MySQL when your database connection gets terminated. Still if you want to delete them in between, then you do so by issuing the DROP TABLE command.
The following program is an example on dropping a temporary table −
mysql> CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE SalesSummary (
-> product_name VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL
-> , total_sales DECIMAL(12,2) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0.00
-> , avg_unit_price DECIMAL(7,2) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0.00
-> , total_units_sold INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0
);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> INSERT INTO SalesSummary
-> (product_name, total_sales, avg_unit_price, total_units_sold)
-> VALUES
-> ('cucumber', 100.25, 90, 2);
mysql> SELECT * FROM SalesSummary;
+--------------+-------------+----------------+------------------+
| product_name | total_sales | avg_unit_price | total_units_sold |
+--------------+-------------+----------------+------------------+
| cucumber | 100.25 | 90.00 | 2 |
+--------------+-------------+----------------+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> DROP TABLE SalesSummary;
mysql> SELECT * FROM SalesSummary;
ERROR 1146: Table 'TUTORIALS.SalesSummary' doesn't exist
There may be a situation when you need an exact copy of a table and CREATE TABLE ... SELECT doesn't suit your purposes because the copy must include the same indexes, default values and so forth.
You can handle this situation by following the steps given below −
Use SHOW CREATE TABLE to get a CREATE TABLE statement that specifies the source table's structure, indexes and all.
Modify the statement to change the table name to that of the clone table and execute the statement. This way, you will have the exact clone table.
Optionally, if you need the table contents copied as well, issue an INSERT INTO ... SELECT statement, too.
Try out the following example to create a clone table for tutorials_tbl.
Step 1 − Get the complete structure about the table.
mysql> SHOW CREATE TABLE tutorials_tbl \G;
*************************** 1. row ***************************
Table: tutorials_tbl
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `tutorials_tbl` (
`tutorial_id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`tutorial_title` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
`tutorial_author` varchar(40) NOT NULL default '',
`submission_date` date default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`tutorial_id`),
UNIQUE KEY `AUTHOR_INDEX` (`tutorial_author`)
) TYPE = MyISAM
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
ERROR:
No query specified
Step 2 − Rename this table and create another table.
mysql> CREATE TABLE clone_tbl ( -> tutorial_id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment, -> tutorial_title varchar(100) NOT NULL default '', -> tutorial_author varchar(40) NOT NULL default '', -> submission_date date default NULL, -> PRIMARY KEY (tutorial_id), -> UNIQUE KEY AUTHOR_INDEX (tutorial_author) -> ) TYPE = MyISAM; Query OK, 0 rows affected (1.80 sec)
Step 3 − After executing step 2, you will create a clone table in your database. If you want to copy data from old table then you can do it by using INSERT INTO... SELECT statement.
mysql> INSERT INTO clone_tbl (tutorial_id, -> tutorial_title, -> tutorial_author, -> submission_date) -> SELECT tutorial_id,tutorial_title, -> tutorial_author,submission_date -> FROM tutorials_tbl; Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.07 sec) Records: 3 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0
Finally, you will have an exact clone table as you wanted to have.