MySQL Stored Procedure vs. complex query

Question

How is the performance of a Stored Procedure? Is it worth using them instead of implementing a complex query in a PHP/MySQL call?

Answer 1

In MySQL or any other SQL server as MSSQL or Oracle, stored procedures increase dramatically the speed of the queries involved because this are already compiled. Stored procedures are more secure than direct queries and as object in the database they can be administered by the owner, giving the right access to each user.

Using stored procedures you can also hide the logic of the queries and procedures and give to the development team and other programmers a "black box" in wich they insert params and receive results.

Definitively stored procedures rocks!!!!

From MySQL 5.1 Documentation: Stored routines can be particularly useful in certain situations:

When multiple client applications are written in different languages or work on different platforms, but need to perform the same database operations.

When security is paramount. Banks, for example, use stored procedures and functions for all common operations. This provides a consistent and secure environment, and routines can ensure that each operation is properly logged. In such a setup, applications and users would have no access to the database tables directly, but can only execute specific stored routines.

Stored routines can provide improved performance because less information needs to be sent between the server and the client. The tradeoff is that this does increase the load on the database server because more of the work is done on the server side and less is done on the client (application) side. Consider this if many client machines (such as Web servers) are serviced by only one or a few database servers.

Stored routines also allow you to have libraries of functions in the database server. This is a feature shared by modern application languages that allow such design internally (for example, by using classes). Using these client application language features is beneficial for the programmer even outside the scope of database use.