MySQL Temporary tables:

• A temporary table allows a user to store temporary records and we can use these records several times until the session does not expire. They are useful in those situations when it is expensive to write a query having single SELECT Statement with Join clauses with it.

• We use CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE statement to create a temporary table and we can use Drop Table statement to drop a temporary table.

Example:
 

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE EMP

SELECT EMPID,

       EMPName,

       Salary

FROM Employee

GROUP BY EMPName

ORDER BY Salary DESC

LIMIT 10

The above query will create a temporary table EMP which is created from Employee table.

Example to drop a temporary table:

DROP TEMPORARY TABLE  EMP;

We can easily drop a temporary table using Drop Temporary Table statement but if we try to delete a permanent table using Drop Temporary Table statement then there will be a error.