mySQL Views?

[cancer10]

Hi

This tutorial (http://www.digitalpropulsion.org/Programming/Views_in_MySQL_5_0) explains what VIEWS are and how are they created.

My Question is that why do we need VIEWS for? Why cannot we use the normal SELECT command and fetch records directly from the main table instead of creating a VIEW first and then display records?


Thanx

[NogDog]

My understanding is that the two main things they provide are a means to implement certain aspects of security (by limiting what can be accessed by a DB user using that view) and to simplify the interface to the data for the programmer (such as a view that implements complex multi-table joins so that the application code only needs to do a simple query on the view).