Jim,
Aha, now the mist is beginning to clear... You are quite correct - although I have an O'Reilly 'ASP in a nutshell' - I've never actually read it, so excuse my lack of understanding.
> Also I do not understand (my turn?) what you mean by "updating the table with a 5 letter name directly from the mysql prompt.." either what you mean or how to try same???
OK, what I'm talking about is using the mysql command-line client to connect to the server and then trying to execute an INSERT statement. For example, on a windows box, it would go something like this:
c:\> mysql -u username -p
Enter Password: ********
Welcome....
mysql>
(at this point you are connected to the server - note, if the mysql executable isn't in $PATH you may have to use the full path:
c:\> c:\mysql\bin\mysql -u username -p
)
mysql> USE databasename;
Database changed
mysql> INSERT INTO VISITORS (Visitor, VistDate, IP) VALUES (etc...) ;
See:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/INSERT.html for the syntax
If you can insert 5 char names by this method, then it 'aint the MySQL engine that is causing the problem - so it would suggest that the problem is something in the front-end - maybe mySQLFront
To quit the mysql client:
mysql> \q
Let me know...
Cheers,
Nick
--
Nick Roper