Once you have opened your phpMyAdmin (to do this, if you are working locally, you would have to open http://localhost/phpmyadmin with your
browser), you will get a screen that offers you the possibilities of
Once you have chosen the desired operation, you arrive at the administration interface of your phpMyAdmin. Newer versions contain a navigation bar, located at the top (Figure 3-8), offering the following options:
Structure: See the database structure.
SQL: Execute SQL operations (e.g. load an existing database).
Export: Make a backup of the database.
Search: Search for data.
Query: Display the structure of an SQL query (useful for programmers).
Drop: Delete a database (be careful!).
Figure 3-8. phpMyAdmin: Navigation bar.
phpMyAdmin: Navigation bar.
As far as we are concerned here, we only need to explain the first 3 items: