How to Create a Database in MySQL

Intro

In MySql you will often start by creating and selecting which database to use. You need a database to store data, so this is a logically place to start. In this article, we will learn how to create databases in mysql.

Getting Setup

We will be using docker in this article, but feel free to install your database locally instead. Once you have docker installed, create a new file called docker-compose.yml and add the following.

version: '3'
 
services:
  db:
    image: mysql:latest
    container_name: db
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root_pass
      MYSQL_DATABASE: app_db
      MYSQL_USER: db_user
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: db_user_pass
    ports:
      - "6033:3306"
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
  phpmyadmin:
    image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
    container_name: pma
    links:
      - db
    environment:
      PMA_HOST: db
      PMA_PORT: 3306
      PMA_ARBITRARY: 1
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8081:80

volumes:
  dbdata:

Next, run docker-compose up.

Now, navigate to http://localhost:8081/ to access phpMyAdmin. Then log in with the username root and pass root_pass.

Click the SQL tab and you are ready to go.

The Basics

To create a database, we can use the CREATE DATABASE statement. For example, let’s create a database called "sakila" named after the example database we will be using for many tutorial (insert link).

CREATE DATABASE sakila;

Next, in MySql, we must select the database we want to use. We can do this by using the USE command.

USE sakila;

Now, MySql knows we want to be sending command using the sakila database.

Create if Not Exists

The using sql scripts to import existing schemas, we often want to check if a database exists before we create. We can do this a few ways. First, we can use the SHOW DATABASES command to list the current databases.

SHOW DATABASES;

The output is as follows:

+--------------------+ | Database | +--------------------+ | sakila| | information_schema | | mysql | | performance_schema | | sys | +--------------------+

Now, if we see the database, we can know to not create it. However, MySQL also has a handy command called IF NOT EXISTS that we can use when creating a database. If we use this clause, the database will only be created if it does not exists.

CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS sakila;