The latest stable version of mysql is 4.02. And mysql 4.02 does not have pl/sql programming as in oracle. However, the upcoming Mysql 5.0 will have this pl/sql programming feature in it.
Stored Procedures and Triggers-->pl/sql (from mysql manual)
Stored procedures are being implemented in our version 5.0 development tree. See section 2.3.4 Installing from the Development Source Tree.
This effort is based on SQL-99, which has a basic syntax similar (but not identical) to Oracle PL/SQL. In addition to this, we are implementing the SQL-99 framework to hook in external languages.
A stored procedure is a set of SQL commands that can be compiled and stored in the server. Once this has been done, clients don't need to keep re-issuing the entire query but can refer to the stored procedure. This provides better overall performance because the query has to be parsed only once, and less information needs to be sent between the server and the client. You can also raise the conceptual level by having libraries of functions in the server. However, stored procedures of course do increase the load on the database server system, as more of the work is done on the server side and less on the client (application) side.
Triggers are scheduled for implementation in MySQL version 5.1. A trigger is effectively a type of stored procedure, one that is invoked when a particular event occurs. For example, you could set up a stored procedure that is triggered each time a record is deleted from a transactional table and that stored procedure automatically deletes the corresponding customer from a customer table when all their transactions are deleted.
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