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mysql> CREATE DATABASE menagerie; 

Under Unix, database names are case-sensitive (unlike SQL keywords), so you must always refer to your database as menagerie , not as Menagerie , MENAGERIE , or some other variant. This is also true for table names. (Under Windows, this restriction does not apply, although you must refer to databases and tables using the same lettercase throughout a given query. However, for a variety of reasons, the recommended best practice is always to use the same lettercase that was used when the database was created.) 

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## Note 

If you get an error such as ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user ’micah’@’localhost’ to database ’menagerie’  when attempting to create a database, this means that your user account does not have the necessary privileges to do so. Discuss this with the administrator or see Section 6.2, “Access Control and Account Management” . 

Creating a database does not select it for use; you must do that explicitly. To make menagerie  the current database, use this statement: 

mysql> USE menagerie Database changed 

Your database needs to be created only once, but you must select it for use each time you begin a mysql session. You can do this by issuing a USE  statement as shown in the example. Alternatively, you can select the database on the command line when you invoke mysql . Just specify its name after any connection parameters that you might need to provide. For example: 

## 3.3.2 Creating a Table 

shell> mysql -h host  -u user  -p menagerie Enter password: ******** 

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## Important 

menagerie  in the command just shown is not  your password. If you want to supply your password on the command line after the -p  option, you must do so with no intervening space (for example, as -p password , not as -p password ). However, putting your password on the command line is not recommended, because doing so exposes it to snooping by other users logged in on your machine. 

## Note 

You can see at any time which database is currently selected using SELECT DATABASE() . 

Creating the database is the easy part, but at this point it is empty, as SHOW TABLES  tells you: 

mysql> SHOW TABLES; Empty set (0.00 sec) 

The harder part is deciding what the structure of your database should be: what tables you need and what columns should be in each of them. 

You want a table that contains a record for each of your pets. This can be called the pet  table, and it should contain, as a bare minimum, each animal’s name. Because the name by itself is not very interesting, the table should contain other information. For example, if more than one person in your 

