Creating databases

CREATE DATABASE company;
CREATE DATABASE `my.contacts`;

The back tick character (`) is used when the database name contains special characters, such as dot (.).

You can switch between databases:

USE company

Database changed

To find which database you are connected to, use the following:

SELECT DATABASE();

+------------+
| DATABASE() |
+------------+
| company    |
+------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

To find all the databases you have access to, use:

SHOW DATABASES;

| Database           |
+--------------------+
| company            |
| information_schema |
| my.contacts        |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| sys                |
+--------------------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

The database is created as a directory inside data directory. To know your current data directory, you can execute:

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'datadir';

+---------------+-----------------+
| Variable_name | Value           |
+---------------+-----------------+
| datadir       | /var/lib/mysql/ |
+---------------+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Check the files inside data directory:

sudo ls -lhtr /var/lib/mysql/

total 165M
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  48M Sep  9 10:45 ib_logfile1
drwxr-x--- 2 mysql mysql 4.0K Sep  9 10:45 performance_schema
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql   56 Sep  9 10:45 auto.cnf
-rw------- 1 mysql mysql 1.7K Sep  9 10:45 ca-key.pem
-rw-r--r-- 1 mysql mysql 1.1K Sep  9 10:45 ca.pem
-rw------- 1 mysql mysql 1.7K Sep  9 10:45 server-key.pem
-rw-r--r-- 1 mysql mysql 1.1K Sep  9 10:45 server-cert.pem
-rw------- 1 mysql mysql 1.7K Sep  9 10:45 client-key.pem
-rw-r--r-- 1 mysql mysql 1.1K Sep  9 10:45 client-cert.pem
-rw-r--r-- 1 mysql mysql  452 Sep  9 10:45 public_key.pem
-rw------- 1 mysql mysql 1.7K Sep  9 10:45 private_key.pem
drwxr-x--- 2 mysql mysql 4.0K Sep  9 10:45 mysql
drwxr-x--- 2 mysql mysql 4.0K Sep  9 10:45 sys
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql 4.5K Sep  9 10:45 ib_buffer_pool
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  499 Sep  9 10:45 binlog.000001
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql   32 Sep  9 10:45 binlog.index
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  12M Sep  9 10:45 ibtmp1
drwxr-x--- 2 mysql mysql 4.0K Sep  9 10:51 company
drwxr-x--- 2 mysql mysql 4.0K Sep  9 10:51 my@002econtacts
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  545 Sep  9 10:51 binlog.000002
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  10M Sep  9 10:51 undo_002
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  10M Sep  9 10:51 undo_001
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  24M Sep  9 10:51 mysql.ibd
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  12M Sep  9 10:51 ibdata1
-rw-r----- 1 mysql mysql  48M Sep  9 10:51 ib_logfile0