Updates to live MySQL database?

[rcbasie]

Hi
I'm interested to know how i can get database updates onto a MySQL database that is sat on a server. I can just about write some decent scripts now (by my standards, anyway!) so now i need to get a strategy for keeping the web database current.
One way i thought of doing this was to write a program to anylise the differences between two versions of the database (locally, on my desk-top), and to generate SQL update statements in a file which i could FTP onto the server and run in batch mode.
If anyone reading this knows of any tricks, or even better free software to help this process, i'd love to hear from you!
Thanks already...
Robin

[shaitan]

Hi Mate,

Is there any reason why you dont want to use mysql's slave and master functionality?

Cheers

Ray

[rcbasie]

Slave & Master functionalitly?
Is that the MySQL Client program? (ie the linux command line agent thingy). Or do you mean that i could set up a 'Master' copy of the MySQL database on my local network, then use some built in MySQL feature to update the 'Slave' copy on the server? (that last one sounds good cos it'll mean that i can tell my boss to get rid of the access database we're using at the moment!). I'm fairly new to the MySQL game (although i'm ok with SQL), so i may be asking questions that require really long time-consuming answers. If so, then any links to online docs, or books to reccomend would be great.
Thanks for your time!
Robin