October 21, 2003, Table types in MySQL: Part 2 - InnoDB tables, By Ian Gilfillan Last month we looked at the HEAP table type, a table type which runs entirely in memory. This month we look at setting up the InnoDB table type, the type of most interest to serious users. The standard MyISAM table type is ideal for website use, where there are many reads in comparison to writes, and no transactions. Where these conditions do not apply (and besides websites, they do not apply often in the database world), the InnoDB table is likely to be the table type of choice. This article is aimed at users who are familiar with MySQL, but have only used the default MyISAM table type. InnoDB Features * ACID-compliant transactions. * Full referential integrity * Row-level locking * Tables are stored in a tablespace (unlike MyISAM tables where each table is a file) What is an ACID-compliant transaction? Database requests (selects, updates or inserts) happen linearly, one after the other. W...