Can I print out a variables value within a stored routine for debugging purposes?
Yes, you can do this in a stored procedure, but not in a stored function. If you perform an ordinary SELECT inside a stored procedure, the result set is returned directly to the client. You will need to use the MySQL 4.1 (or above) client-server protocol for this to work. This means that — for instance — in PHP, you need to use the mysqli extension rather than the old mysql extension.
