A TEMPORARY table can only be of type MEMORY, MyISAM, MERGE, or InnoDB.

Temporary tables are not supported for MySQL Cluster.

You cannot refer to a TEMPORARY table more than once in the same query. For example, the following does not work:

mysql> SELECT * FROM temp_table, temp_table AS t2;
ERROR 1137: Can't reopen table: 'temp_table'

This error also occurs if you refer to a temporary table multiple times in a stored function under different aliases, even if the references occur in different statements within the function.

The SHOW TABLES statement does not list TEMPORARY tables.

You cannot use RENAME to rename a TEMPORARY table. However, you can use ALTER TABLE instead:

mysql> ALTER TABLE orig_name RENAME new_name;

There are known issues in using temporary tables with replication. See Section 16.4.1, “Replication Features and Issues”, for more information.