As part of the effort of making MySQL Cluster a more mainstream product,
it's been on our agenda for a very long time to rewrite the NDB API
documentation so that it becomes usable by mere mortals. It took nearly
three months to do this, because the new documentation is almost 300
pages long! The MySQL NDB API Guide covers two low-level APIs for
writing applications that work with MySQL's NDB Cluster storage engine:

- The NDB API is an object-oriented application programming interface
for MySQL Cluster. The API provides ACID-compliant transactions,
table and row scans that are similar in many ways to SQL cursors, and
event handling. It also features object-oriented error-handling
facilities.

- The other API is the MySQL Cluster Management API (MGM API), a
programming interface intended to provide administrative services for
the cluster, such as starting and stopping Cluster nodes, Cluster
logging, backups, and restoration from backups.

MySQL is shipped with a set of test cases and programs for running them.
These tools constitute the MySQL test framework that provides a means
for verifying that MySQL Server and its client programs operate
according to expectations. That's handy for anybody developing MySQL or
contributing code to MySQL. In case the preconfigured test cases (there
are hundreds) don't suffice the MySQL test framework can be extended by
writing test cases using the mysqltest language.

The MySQL test framework has been around for a long time, but making use
of the mysqltest language was something for the inaugurated only because
there was no documentation, except for this: "You can use the mysqltest
language to write your own test cases. Unfortunately, we have not yet
written full documentation for it. You can, however, look at our current
test cases and use them as an example."

Well, tables have turned, and the MySQL test framework is documented on
more than 60 pages now. For anyone contributing code to MySQL it's a
must-read. But don't be afraid, it's also fun to read, because it was
written by Paul DuBois. See for yourself:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/index.html#mysqltest

Regards,

MySQL has provided support for CJK languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
for a long time. There's a chapter in the MySQL Reference Manual that
extensively covers MySQL character set support. Managing CJK data can be
particularly tricky, though. Therefore we've just added a FAQ section
that answers the most common questions about handling CJK contents and
provides hands-on solutions to common problems.

This Frequently-Asked-Questions section comes from the experiences of
MySQL's Support and Development groups, after handling many enquiries
about CJK issues. The FAQ is available for the MySQL 5.0 and 5.1 manuals:

- http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/cjk-faq.html
- http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/cjk-faq.html

Regards,

Stefan
--
Stefan Hinz mysql.com>
MySQL AB Documentation Team Lead. Berlin, Germany (UTC +2:00)
Skype:stefanhinz Cell:+491777841069 Desk:+493082702940 Fax:+493082702941