It’s somehow not been noted in public yet, but the restriction that stored functions could not access database tables has been resolved.
So that is fantastic, a major leap in terms of possibilities and the full-featured implementation of SQL:2003 in this respect.
See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/stored-procedures.html
Go team!
Now all we need to do is listen in on Brian’s webinar and learn how to do it…
http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/web-seminars/inside-mysql-5.php
SQL Forever!!!