Thanks to lamp2lamo for the general framework and bulk of the examples!

To call a function in a package you have to call it by package_name.function_name

For example if we wrapped the date functions up into a package called mysql_dates you would call the now function like:

SELECT mysql_dates.now FROM dual;

As opposed to the method without the package:

SELECT now FROM dual;

To make porting easier its probably better not to wrap these functions in a package.

“If you develop and distribute a commercial application and as part of utilizing your application, the end-user must download a copy of MySQL; for each derivative work, you (or, in some cases, your end-user) need a commercial license for the MySQL server and/or MySQL client libraries.”

It would appear that for developing an Intranet application you would be fine but if you purchase software such as vBulletin and run it on your server then you require a MySQL license. My interpretation of the spirit of the license can be summarised by “If you paid for the software then you need to pay for MySQL.”

Oracle can return case-sensitive column-names:
SQL> create table test (id number, thing varchar2(10));

Table created.

SQL> insert into test(id, thing) values (1, ‘One’);

1 row created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> select id as Id, thing as Thing from test;

ID THING select id as “Id”, thing as “Thing” from test;

Id Thing