# Introduction

phpMyAdmin can manage a whole MySQL server (needs a super-user) as well as a single database. To accomplish the latter you’ll need a properly set up MySQL user who can read/write only the desired database. It’s up to you to look up the appropriate part in the MySQL manual.

## Supported features

Currently phpMyAdmin can:

- browse and drop databases, tables, views, columns and indexes
- display multiple results sets through stored procedures or queries
- create, copy, drop, rename and alter databases, tables, columns and indexes
- maintenance server, databases and tables, with proposals on server configuration
- execute, edit and bookmark any SQL-statement, even batch-queries
- load text files into tables
- create [1] and read dumps of tables
- export [1] data to various formats: CSV, XML, PDF, ISO/IEC 26300 - OpenDocument Text and Spreadsheet, Microsoft Word 2000, and LATEX formats
- import data and MySQL structures from OpenDocument spreadsheets, as well as XML, CSV, and SQL files
- administer multiple servers
- manage MySQL users and privileges
- check referential integrity in MyISAM tables
- using Query-by-example (QBE), create complex queries automatically connecting required tables
- create PDF graphics of your database layout
- search globally in a database or a subset of it
- transform stored data into any format using a set of predefined functions, like displaying BLOB-data as image or download-link
- track changes on databases, tables and views
- support InnoDB tables and foreign keys see 3.6 What is currently not supported in phpMyAdmin about InnoDB?
- support mysqli, the improved MySQL extension see 1.17 Which MySQL versions does phpMyAdmin support?
- create, edit, call, export and drop stored procedures and functions
- create, edit, export and drop events and triggers
- communicate in 62 different languages

## A word about users

Many people have difficulty understanding the concept of user management with regards to phpMyAdmin. When a user logs in to phpMyAdmin, that username and password are passed directly to MySQL. phpMyAdmin does no account management on its own (other than allowing one to manipulate the MySQL user account information); all users must be valid MySQL users.

Footnotes

[1] | (1, 2) phpMyAdmin can compress (Zip, GZip RFC 1952 or Bzip2 formats) dumps and CSV exports if you use PHP with Zlib support (`--with-zlib`) and/or Bzip2 support (`--with-bz2`). Proper support may also need changes in `php.ini`.