references in MySQL

[osheriff]

what does 'references' do when used in MySQL type description. An explanation in terms of a relational database would be nice.

(I hope I'm not being a pain)
Thanks
Sheriff

[tomhath]

According to the manual I have (4.0.0) "FOREIGN KEY, CHECK, and REFERENCES don't actually do anything. The syntax for them is is provided only for compatibility to make it easier to port code...".

Normally it would be used to define a column in one table as a Foreign Key to another table so you could enforce Referential Integrity, etc.