The EXAMPLE storage engine was added in MySQL 4.1.3. It is a “stub” engine that does nothing. Its purpose is to serve as an example in the MySQL source code that illustrates how to begin writing new storage engines. As such, it is primarily of interest to developers.

The EXAMPLE storage engine is included in MySQL-Max binary distributions. To enable this storage engine if you build MySQL from source, invoke configure with the --with-example-storage-engine option.

To examine the source for the EXAMPLE engine, look in the sql/examples directory of a MySQL source distribution.

When you create an EXAMPLE table, the server creates a table format file in the database directory. The file begins with the table name and has an .frm extension. No other files are created. No data can be stored into the table. Retrievals return an empty result.

mysql> CREATE TABLE test (i INT) ENGINE = EXAMPLE;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.78 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO test VALUES(1),(2),(3);
ERROR 1031 (HY000): Table storage engine for 'test' doesn't have this option

mysql> SELECT * FROM test;
Empty set (0.31 sec)

The EXAMPLE storage engine does not support indexing.