Chapter 11 Data Types

Table of Contents

11.1 Data Type Overview
11.1.1 Numeric Type Overview
11.1.2 Date and Time Type Overview
11.1.3 String Type Overview
11.2 Numeric Types
11.2.1 Integer Types (Exact Value) - INTEGER, INT, SMALLINT, TINYINT, MEDIUMINT, BIGINT
11.2.2 Fixed-Point Types (Exact Value) - DECIMAL, NUMERIC
11.2.3 Floating-Point Types (Approximate Value) - FLOAT, DOUBLE
11.2.4 Bit-Value Type - BIT
11.2.5 Numeric Type Attributes
11.2.6 Out-of-Range and Overflow Handling
11.3 Date and Time Types
11.3.1 The DATE, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP Types
11.3.2 The TIME Type
11.3.3 The YEAR Type
11.3.4 YEAR(2) Limitations and Migrating to YEAR(4)
11.3.5 Automatic Initialization and Updating for TIMESTAMP
11.3.6 Fractional Seconds in Time Values
11.3.7 Conversion Between Date and Time Types
11.3.8 Two-Digit Years in Dates
11.4 String Types
11.4.1 The CHAR and VARCHAR Types
11.4.2 The BINARY and VARBINARY Types
11.4.3 The BLOB and TEXT Types
11.4.4 The ENUM Type
11.4.5 The SET Type
11.5 Extensions for Spatial Data
11.5.1 Spatial Data Types
11.5.2 The OpenGIS Geometry Model
11.5.3 Using Spatial Data
11.6 Data Type Default Values
11.7 Data Type Storage Requirements
11.8 Choosing the Right Type for a Column
11.9 Using Data Types from Other Database Engines

MySQL supports a number of SQL data types in several categories: numeric types, date and time types, string (character and byte) types, and spatial types. This chapter provides an overview of these data types, a more detailed description of the properties of the types in each category, and a summary of the data type storage requirements. The initial overview is intentionally brief. The more detailed descriptions later in the chapter should be consulted for additional information about particular data types, such as the permissible formats in which you can specify values.

Data type descriptions use these conventions:

11.1 Data Type Overview

11.1.1 Numeric Type Overview

A summary of the numeric data types follows. For additional information about properties and storage requirements of the numeric types, see Section 11.2, “Numeric Types”, and Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements”.

M indicates the maximum display width for integer types. The maximum display width is 255. Display width is unrelated to the range of values a type can contain, as described in Section 11.2, “Numeric Types”. For floating-point and fixed-point types, M is the total number of digits that can be stored.

If you specify ZEROFILL for a numeric column, MySQL automatically adds the UNSIGNED attribute to the column.

Numeric data types that permit the UNSIGNED attribute also permit SIGNED. However, these data types are signed by default, so the SIGNED attribute has no effect.

SERIAL is an alias for BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT UNIQUE.

SERIAL DEFAULT VALUE in the definition of an integer column is an alias for NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT UNIQUE.

Warning

When you use subtraction between integer values where one is of type UNSIGNED, the result is unsigned unless the NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION SQL mode is enabled. See Section 12.10, “Cast Functions and Operators”.

  • BIT[(M)]

    A bit-field type. M indicates the number of bits per value, from 1 to 64. The default is 1 if M is omitted.

  • TINYINT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A very small integer. The signed range is -128 to 127. The unsigned range is 0 to 255.

  • BOOL, BOOLEAN

    These types are synonyms for TINYINT(1). A value of zero is considered false. Nonzero values are considered true:

    mysql> SELECT IF(0, 'true', 'false');
    +------------------------+
    | IF(0, 'true', 'false') |
    +------------------------+
    | false                  |
    +------------------------+
    
    mysql> SELECT IF(1, 'true', 'false');
    +------------------------+
    | IF(1, 'true', 'false') |
    +------------------------+
    | true                   |
    +------------------------+
    
    mysql> SELECT IF(2, 'true', 'false');
    +------------------------+
    | IF(2, 'true', 'false') |
    +------------------------+
    | true                   |
    +------------------------+
    

    However, the values TRUE and FALSE are merely aliases for 1 and 0, respectively, as shown here:

    mysql> SELECT IF(0 = FALSE, 'true', 'false');
    +--------------------------------+
    | IF(0 = FALSE, 'true', 'false') |
    +--------------------------------+
    | true                           |
    +--------------------------------+
    
    mysql> SELECT IF(1 = TRUE, 'true', 'false');
    +-------------------------------+
    | IF(1 = TRUE, 'true', 'false') |
    +-------------------------------+
    | true                          |
    +-------------------------------+
    
    mysql> SELECT IF(2 = TRUE, 'true', 'false');
    +-------------------------------+
    | IF(2 = TRUE, 'true', 'false') |
    +-------------------------------+
    | false                         |
    +-------------------------------+
    
    mysql> SELECT IF(2 = FALSE, 'true', 'false');
    +--------------------------------+
    | IF(2 = FALSE, 'true', 'false') |
    +--------------------------------+
    | false                          |
    +--------------------------------+
    

    The last two statements display the results shown because 2 is equal to neither 1 nor 0.

  • SMALLINT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A small integer. The signed range is -32768 to 32767. The unsigned range is 0 to 65535.

  • MEDIUMINT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A medium-sized integer. The signed range is -8388608 to 8388607. The unsigned range is 0 to 16777215.

  • INT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A normal-size integer. The signed range is -2147483648 to 2147483647. The unsigned range is 0 to 4294967295.

  • INTEGER[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    This type is a synonym for INT.

  • BIGINT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A large integer. The signed range is -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807. The unsigned range is 0 to 18446744073709551615.

    SERIAL is an alias for BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT UNIQUE.

    Some things you should be aware of with respect to BIGINT columns:

    • All arithmetic is done using signed BIGINT or DOUBLE values, so you should not use unsigned big integers larger than 9223372036854775807 (63 bits) except with bit functions! If you do that, some of the last digits in the result may be wrong because of rounding errors when converting a BIGINT value to a DOUBLE.

      MySQL can handle BIGINT in the following cases:

      • When using integers to store large unsigned values in a BIGINT column.

      • In MIN(col_name) or MAX(col_name), where col_name refers to a BIGINT column.

      • When using operators (+, -, *, and so on) where both operands are integers.

    • You can always store an exact integer value in a BIGINT column by storing it using a string. In this case, MySQL performs a string-to-number conversion that involves no intermediate double-precision representation.

    • The -, +, and * operators use BIGINT arithmetic when both operands are integer values. This means that if you multiply two big integers (or results from functions that return integers), you may get unexpected results when the result is larger than 9223372036854775807.

  • DECIMAL[(M[,D])] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A packed exact fixed-point number. M is the total number of digits (the precision) and D is the number of digits after the decimal point (the scale). The decimal point and (for negative numbers) the - sign are not counted in M. If D is 0, values have no decimal point or fractional part. The maximum number of digits (M) for DECIMAL is 65. The maximum number of supported decimals (D) is 30. If D is omitted, the default is 0. If M is omitted, the default is 10.

    UNSIGNED, if specified, disallows negative values.

    All basic calculations (+, -, *, /) with DECIMAL columns are done with a precision of 65 digits.

  • DEC[(M[,D])] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL], NUMERIC[(M[,D])] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL], FIXED[(M[,D])] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    These types are synonyms for DECIMAL. The FIXED synonym is available for compatibility with other database systems.

  • FLOAT[(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A small (single-precision) floating-point number. Permissible values are -3.402823466E+38 to -1.175494351E-38, 0, and 1.175494351E-38 to 3.402823466E+38. These are the theoretical limits, based on the IEEE standard. The actual range might be slightly smaller depending on your hardware or operating system.

    M is the total number of digits and D is the number of digits following the decimal point. If M and D are omitted, values are stored to the limits permitted by the hardware. A single-precision floating-point number is accurate to approximately 7 decimal places.

    UNSIGNED, if specified, disallows negative values.

    Using FLOAT might give you some unexpected problems because all calculations in MySQL are done with double precision. See Section B.5.5.7, “Solving Problems with No Matching Rows”.

  • DOUBLE[(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A normal-size (double-precision) floating-point number. Permissible values are -1.7976931348623157E+308 to -2.2250738585072014E-308, 0, and 2.2250738585072014E-308 to 1.7976931348623157E+308. These are the theoretical limits, based on the IEEE standard. The actual range might be slightly smaller depending on your hardware or operating system.

    M is the total number of digits and D is the number of digits following the decimal point. If M and D are omitted, values are stored to the limits permitted by the hardware. A double-precision floating-point number is accurate to approximately 15 decimal places.

    UNSIGNED, if specified, disallows negative values.

  • DOUBLE PRECISION[(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL], REAL[(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    These types are synonyms for DOUBLE. Exception: If the REAL_AS_FLOAT SQL mode is enabled, REAL is a synonym for FLOAT rather than DOUBLE.

  • FLOAT(p) [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]

    A floating-point number. p represents the precision in bits, but MySQL uses this value only to determine whether to use FLOAT or DOUBLE for the resulting data type. If p is from 0 to 24, the data type becomes FLOAT with no M or D values. If p is from 25 to 53, the data type becomes DOUBLE with no M or D values. The range of the resulting column is the same as for the single-precision FLOAT or double-precision DOUBLE data types described earlier in this section.

    FLOAT(p) syntax is provided for ODBC compatibility.

11.1.2 Date and Time Type Overview

A summary of the temporal data types follows. For additional information about properties and storage requirements of the temporal types, see Section 11.3, “Date and Time Types”, and Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements”. For descriptions of functions that operate on temporal values, see Section 12.7, “Date and Time Functions”.

For the DATE and DATETIME range descriptions, supported means that although earlier values might work, there is no guarantee.

  • DATE

    A date. The supported range is '1000-01-01' to '9999-12-31'. MySQL displays DATE values in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format, but permits assignment of values to DATE columns using either strings or numbers.

  • DATETIME

    A date and time combination. The supported range is '1000-01-01 00:00:00' to '9999-12-31 23:59:59'. MySQL displays DATETIME values in 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' format, but permits assignment of values to DATETIME columns using either strings or numbers.

  • TIMESTAMP

    A timestamp. The range is '1970-01-01 00:00:01' UTC to '2038-01-19 03:14:07' UTC. TIMESTAMP values are stored as the number of seconds since the epoch ('1970-01-01 00:00:00' UTC). A TIMESTAMP cannot represent the value '1970-01-01 00:00:00' because that is equivalent to 0 seconds from the epoch and the value 0 is reserved for representing '0000-00-00 00:00:00', the zero TIMESTAMP value.

    Unless specified otherwise, the first TIMESTAMP column in a table is defined to be automatically set to the date and time of the most recent modification if not explicitly assigned a value. This makes TIMESTAMP useful for recording the timestamp of an INSERT or UPDATE operation. You can also set any TIMESTAMP column to the current date and time by assigning it a NULL value, unless it has been defined with the NULL attribute to permit NULL values. The automatic initialization and updating to the current date and time can be specified using DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP clauses, as described in Section 11.3.5, “Automatic Initialization and Updating for TIMESTAMP”.

    Note

    The TIMESTAMP format that was used prior to MySQL 4.1 is not supported in MySQL 5.5; see MySQL 3.23, 4.0, 4.1 Reference Manual for information regarding the old format.

  • TIME

    A time. The range is '-838:59:59' to '838:59:59'. MySQL displays TIME values in 'HH:MM:SS' format, but permits assignment of values to TIME columns using either strings or numbers.

  • YEAR[(2|4)]

    A year in two-digit or four-digit format. The default is four-digit format. YEAR(2) or YEAR(4) differ in display format, but have the same range of values. In four-digit format, values display as 1901 to 2155, and 0000. In two-digit format, values display as 70 to 69, representing years from 1970 to 2069. MySQL displays YEAR values in YYYY or YY format, but permits assignment of values to YEAR columns using either strings or numbers.

    Note

    The YEAR(2) data type has certain issues that you should consider before choosing to use it. As of MySQL 5.5.27, YEAR(2) is deprecated. For more information, see Section 11.3.4, “YEAR(2) Limitations and Migrating to YEAR(4)”.

    For additional information about YEAR display format and interpretation of input values, see Section 11.3.3, “The YEAR Type”.

The SUM() and AVG() aggregate functions do not work with temporal values. (They convert the values to numbers, losing everything after the first nonnumeric character.) To work around this problem, convert to numeric units, perform the aggregate operation, and convert back to a temporal value. Examples:

SELECT SEC_TO_TIME(SUM(TIME_TO_SEC(time_col))) FROM tbl_name;
SELECT FROM_DAYS(SUM(TO_DAYS(date_col))) FROM tbl_name;
Note

The MySQL server can be run with the MAXDB SQL mode enabled. In this case, TIMESTAMP is identical with DATETIME. If this mode is enabled at the time that a table is created, TIMESTAMP columns are created as DATETIME columns. As a result, such columns use DATETIME display format, have the same range of values, and there is no automatic initialization or updating to the current date and time. See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.

11.1.3 String Type Overview

A summary of the string data types follows. For additional information about properties and storage requirements of the string types, see Section 11.4, “String Types”, and Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements”.

In some cases, MySQL may change a string column to a type different from that given in a CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement. See Section 13.1.17.4, “Silent Column Specification Changes”.

MySQL interprets length specifications in character column definitions in character units. This applies to CHAR, VARCHAR, and the TEXT types.

Column definitions for many string data types can include attributes that specify the character set or collation of the column. These attributes apply to the CHAR, VARCHAR, the TEXT types, ENUM, and SET data types:

  • The CHARACTER SET attribute specifies the character set, and the COLLATE attribute specifies a collation for the character set. For example:

    CREATE TABLE t
    (
        c1 VARCHAR(20) CHARACTER SET utf8,
        c2 TEXT CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_cs
    );
    

    This table definition creates a column named c1 that has a character set of utf8 with the default collation for that character set, and a column named c2 that has a character set of latin1 and a case-sensitive collation.

    The rules for assigning the character set and collation when either or both of the CHARACTER SET and COLLATE attributes are missing are described in Section 10.1.3.4, “Column Character Set and Collation”.

    CHARSET is a synonym for CHARACTER SET.

  • Specifying the CHARACTER SET binary attribute for a character data type causes the column to be created as the corresponding binary data type: CHAR becomes BINARY, VARCHAR becomes VARBINARY, and TEXT becomes BLOB. For the ENUM and SET data types, this does not occur; they are created as declared. Suppose that you specify a table using this definition:

    CREATE TABLE t
    (
      c1 VARCHAR(10) CHARACTER SET binary,
      c2 TEXT CHARACTER SET binary,
      c3 ENUM('a','b','c') CHARACTER SET binary
    );
    

    The resulting table has this definition:

    CREATE TABLE t
    (
      c1 VARBINARY(10),
      c2 BLOB,
      c3 ENUM('a','b','c') CHARACTER SET binary
    );
    
  • The ASCII attribute is shorthand for CHARACTER SET latin1.

  • The UNICODE attribute is shorthand for CHARACTER SET ucs2.

  • The BINARY attribute is shorthand for specifying the binary collation of the column character set. In this case, sorting and comparison are based on numeric character values.

Character column sorting and comparison are based on the character set assigned to the column. For the CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT, ENUM, and SET data types, you can declare a column with a binary collation or the BINARY attribute to cause sorting and comparison to use the underlying character code values rather than a lexical ordering.

Section 10.1, “Character Set Support”, provides additional information about use of character sets in MySQL.

  • [NATIONAL] CHAR[(M)] [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

    A fixed-length string that is always right-padded with spaces to the specified length when stored. M represents the column length in characters. The range of M is 0 to 255. If M is omitted, the length is 1.

    Note

    Trailing spaces are removed when CHAR values are retrieved unless the PAD_CHAR_TO_FULL_LENGTH SQL mode is enabled.

    CHAR is shorthand for CHARACTER. NATIONAL CHAR (or its equivalent short form, NCHAR) is the standard SQL way to define that a CHAR column should use some predefined character set. MySQL 4.1 and up uses utf8 as this predefined character set. Section 10.1.3.6, “National Character Set”.

    The CHAR BYTE data type is an alias for the BINARY data type. This is a compatibility feature.

    MySQL permits you to create a column of type CHAR(0). This is useful primarily when you have to be compliant with old applications that depend on the existence of a column but that do not actually use its value. CHAR(0) is also quite nice when you need a column that can take only two values: A column that is defined as CHAR(0) NULL occupies only one bit and can take only the values NULL and '' (the empty string).

  • [NATIONAL] VARCHAR(M) [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

    A variable-length string. M represents the maximum column length in characters. The range of M is 0 to 65,535. The effective maximum length of a VARCHAR is subject to the maximum row size (65,535 bytes, which is shared among all columns) and the character set used. For example, utf8 characters can require up to three bytes per character, so a VARCHAR column that uses the utf8 character set can be declared to be a maximum of 21,844 characters. See Section D.10.4, “Limits on Table Column Count and Row Size”.

    MySQL stores VARCHAR values as a 1-byte or 2-byte length prefix plus data. The length prefix indicates the number of bytes in the value. A VARCHAR column uses one length byte if values require no more than 255 bytes, two length bytes if values may require more than 255 bytes.

    Note

    MySQL 5.5 follows the standard SQL specification, and does not remove trailing spaces from VARCHAR values.

    VARCHAR is shorthand for CHARACTER VARYING. NATIONAL VARCHAR is the standard SQL way to define that a VARCHAR column should use some predefined character set. MySQL 4.1 and up uses utf8 as this predefined character set. Section 10.1.3.6, “National Character Set”. NVARCHAR is shorthand for NATIONAL VARCHAR.

  • BINARY(M)

    The BINARY type is similar to the CHAR type, but stores binary byte strings rather than nonbinary character strings. M represents the column length in bytes.

  • VARBINARY(M)

    The VARBINARY type is similar to the VARCHAR type, but stores binary byte strings rather than nonbinary character strings. M represents the maximum column length in bytes.

  • TINYBLOB

    A BLOB column with a maximum length of 255 (28 − 1) bytes. Each TINYBLOB value is stored using a 1-byte length prefix that indicates the number of bytes in the value.

  • TINYTEXT [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

    A TEXT column with a maximum length of 255 (28 − 1) characters. The effective maximum length is less if the value contains multibyte characters. Each TINYTEXT value is stored using a 1-byte length prefix that indicates the number of bytes in the value.

  • BLOB[(M)]

    A BLOB column with a maximum length of 65,535 (216 − 1) bytes. Each BLOB value is stored using a 2-byte length prefix that indicates the number of bytes in the value.

    An optional length M can be given for this type. If this is done, MySQL creates the column as the smallest BLOB type large enough to hold values M bytes long.

  • TEXT[(M)] [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

    A TEXT column with a maximum length of 65,535 (216 − 1) characters. The effective maximum length is less if the value contains multibyte characters. Each TEXT value is stored using a 2-byte length prefix that indicates the number of bytes in the value.

    An optional length M can be given for this type. If this is done, MySQL creates the column as the smallest TEXT type large enough to hold values M characters long.

  • MEDIUMBLOB

    A BLOB column with a maximum length of 16,777,215 (224 − 1) bytes. Each MEDIUMBLOB value is stored using a 3-byte length prefix that indicates the number of bytes in the value.

  • MEDIUMTEXT [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

    A TEXT column with a maximum length of 16,777,215 (224 − 1) characters. The effective maximum length is less if the value contains multibyte characters. Each MEDIUMTEXT value is stored using a 3-byte length prefix that indicates the number of bytes in the value.

  • LONGBLOB

    A BLOB column with a maximum length of 4,294,967,295 or 4GB (232 − 1) bytes. The effective maximum length of LONGBLOB columns depends on the configured maximum packet size in the client/server protocol and available memory. Each LONGBLOB value is stored using a 4-byte length prefix that indicates the number of bytes in the value.

  • LONGTEXT [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

    A TEXT column with a maximum length of 4,294,967,295 or 4GB (232 − 1) characters. The effective maximum length is less if the value contains multibyte characters. The effective maximum length of LONGTEXT columns also depends on the configured maximum packet size in the client/server protocol and available memory. Each LONGTEXT value is stored using a 4-byte length prefix that indicates the number of bytes in the value.

  • ENUM('value1','value2',...) [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

    An enumeration. A string object that can have only one value, chosen from the list of values 'value1', 'value2', ..., NULL or the special '' error value. ENUM values are represented internally as integers.

    An ENUM column can have a maximum of 65,535 distinct elements. (The practical limit is less than 3000.) A table can have no more than 255 unique element list definitions among its ENUM and SET columns considered as a group. For more information on these limits, see Section D.10.5, “Limits Imposed by .frm File Structure”.

  • SET('value1','value2',...) [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

    A set. A string object that can have zero or more values, each of which must be chosen from the list of values 'value1', 'value2', ... SET values are represented internally as integers.

    A SET column can have a maximum of 64 distinct members. A table can have no more than 255 unique element list definitions among its ENUM and SET columns considered as a group. For more information on this limit, see Section D.10.5, “Limits Imposed by .frm File Structure”.

11.2 Numeric Types

MySQL supports all standard SQL numeric data types. These types include the exact numeric data types (INTEGER, SMALLINT, DECIMAL, and NUMERIC), as well as the approximate numeric data types (FLOAT, REAL, and DOUBLE PRECISION). The keyword INT is a synonym for INTEGER, and the keywords DEC and FIXED are synonyms for DECIMAL. MySQL treats DOUBLE as a synonym for DOUBLE PRECISION (a nonstandard extension). MySQL also treats REAL as a synonym for DOUBLE PRECISION (a nonstandard variation), unless the REAL_AS_FLOAT SQL mode is enabled.

The BIT data type stores bit-field values and is supported for MyISAM, MEMORY, InnoDB, and NDBCLUSTER tables.

For information about how MySQL handles assignment of out-of-range values to columns and overflow during expression evaluation, see Section 11.2.6, “Out-of-Range and Overflow Handling”.

For information about numeric type storage requirements, see Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements”.

The data type used for the result of a calculation on numeric operands depends on the types of the operands and the operations performed on them. For more information, see Section 12.6.1, “Arithmetic Operators”.

11.2.1 Integer Types (Exact Value) - INTEGER, INT, SMALLINT, TINYINT, MEDIUMINT, BIGINT

MySQL supports the SQL standard integer types INTEGER (or INT) and SMALLINT. As an extension to the standard, MySQL also supports the integer types TINYINT, MEDIUMINT, and BIGINT. The following table shows the required storage and range for each integer type.

TypeStorageMinimum ValueMaximum Value
 (Bytes)(Signed/Unsigned)(Signed/Unsigned)
TINYINT1-128127
  0255
SMALLINT2-3276832767
  065535
MEDIUMINT3-83886088388607
  016777215
INT4-21474836482147483647
  04294967295
BIGINT8-92233720368547758089223372036854775807
  018446744073709551615

11.2.2 Fixed-Point Types (Exact Value) - DECIMAL, NUMERIC

The DECIMAL and NUMERIC types store exact numeric data values. These types are used when it is important to preserve exact precision, for example with monetary data. In MySQL, NUMERIC is implemented as DECIMAL, so the following remarks about DECIMAL apply equally to NUMERIC.

MySQL 5.5 stores DECIMAL values in binary format. See Section 12.18, “Precision Math”.

In a DECIMAL column declaration, the precision and scale can be (and usually is) specified; for example:

salary DECIMAL(5,2)

In this example, 5 is the precision and 2 is the scale. The precision represents the number of significant digits that are stored for values, and the scale represents the number of digits that can be stored following the decimal point.

Standard SQL requires that DECIMAL(5,2) be able to store any value with five digits and two decimals, so values that can be stored in the salary column range from -999.99 to 999.99.

In standard SQL, the syntax DECIMAL(M) is equivalent to DECIMAL(M,0). Similarly, the syntax DECIMAL is equivalent to DECIMAL(M,0), where the implementation is permitted to decide the value of M. MySQL supports both of these variant forms of DECIMAL syntax. The default value of M is 10.

If the scale is 0, DECIMAL values contain no decimal point or fractional part.

The maximum number of digits for DECIMAL is 65, but the actual range for a given DECIMAL column can be constrained by the precision or scale for a given column. When such a column is assigned a value with more digits following the decimal point than are permitted by the specified scale, the value is converted to that scale. (The precise behavior is operating system-specific, but generally the effect is truncation to the permissible number of digits.)

11.2.3 Floating-Point Types (Approximate Value) - FLOAT, DOUBLE

The FLOAT and DOUBLE types represent approximate numeric data values. MySQL uses four bytes for single-precision values and eight bytes for double-precision values.

For FLOAT, the SQL standard permits an optional specification of the precision (but not the range of the exponent) in bits following the keyword FLOAT in parentheses. MySQL also supports this optional precision specification, but the precision value is used only to determine storage size. A precision from 0 to 23 results in a 4-byte single-precision FLOAT column. A precision from 24 to 53 results in an 8-byte double-precision DOUBLE column.

MySQL permits a nonstandard syntax: FLOAT(M,D) or REAL(M,D) or DOUBLE PRECISION(M,D). Here, (M,D) means than values can be stored with up to M digits in total, of which D digits may be after the decimal point. For example, a column defined as FLOAT(7,4) will look like -999.9999 when displayed. MySQL performs rounding when storing values, so if you insert 999.00009 into a FLOAT(7,4) column, the approximate result is 999.0001.

Because floating-point values are approximate and not stored as exact values, attempts to treat them as exact in comparisons may lead to problems. They are also subject to platform or implementation dependencies. For more information, see Section B.5.5.8, “Problems with Floating-Point Values”

For maximum portability, code requiring storage of approximate numeric data values should use FLOAT or DOUBLE PRECISION with no specification of precision or number of digits.

11.2.4 Bit-Value Type - BIT

The BIT data type is used to store bit-field values. A type of BIT(M) enables storage of M-bit values. M can range from 1 to 64.

To specify bit values, b'value' notation can be used. value is a binary value written using zeros and ones. For example, b'111' and b'10000000' represent 7 and 128, respectively. See Section 9.1.6, “Bit-Field Literals”.

If you assign a value to a BIT(M) column that is less than M bits long, the value is padded on the left with zeros. For example, assigning a value of b'101' to a BIT(6) column is, in effect, the same as assigning b'000101'.

11.2.5 Numeric Type Attributes

MySQL supports an extension for optionally specifying the display width of integer data types in parentheses following the base keyword for the type. For example, INT(4) specifies an INT with a display width of four digits. This optional display width may be used by applications to display integer values having a width less than the width specified for the column by left-padding them with spaces. (That is, this width is present in the metadata returned with result sets. Whether it is used or not is up to the application.)

The display width does not constrain the range of values that can be stored in the column. Nor does it prevent values wider than the column display width from being displayed correctly. For example, a column specified as SMALLINT(3) has the usual SMALLINT range of -32768 to 32767, and values outside the range permitted by three digits are displayed in full using more than three digits.

When used in conjunction with the optional (nonstandard) attribute ZEROFILL, the default padding of spaces is replaced with zeros. For example, for a column declared as INT(4) ZEROFILL, a value of 5 is retrieved as 0005.

Note

The ZEROFILL attribute is ignored when a column is involved in expressions or UNION queries.

If you store values larger than the display width in an integer column that has the ZEROFILL attribute, you may experience problems when MySQL generates temporary tables for some complicated joins. In these cases, MySQL assumes that the data values fit within the column display width.

All integer types can have an optional (nonstandard) attribute UNSIGNED. Unsigned type can be used to permit only nonnegative numbers in a column or when you need a larger upper numeric range for the column. For example, if an INT column is UNSIGNED, the size of the column's range is the same but its endpoints shift from -2147483648 and 2147483647 up to 0 and 4294967295.

Floating-point and fixed-point types also can be UNSIGNED. As with integer types, this attribute prevents negative values from being stored in the column. Unlike the integer types, the upper range of column values remains the same.

If you specify ZEROFILL for a numeric column, MySQL automatically adds the UNSIGNED attribute to the column.

Integer or floating-point data types can have the additional attribute AUTO_INCREMENT. When you insert a value of NULL (recommended) or 0 into an indexed AUTO_INCREMENT column, the column is set to the next sequence value. Typically this is value+1, where value is the largest value for the column currently in the table. AUTO_INCREMENT sequences begin with 1. (Inserting NULL to generate AUTO_INCREMENT values requires that the column be declared NOT NULL. If the column is declared NULL, inserting NULL stores a NULL.) When you insert any other value into a AUTO_INCREMENT column, the column is set to that value and the sequence is reset so that the next automatically generated value follows sequentially from the inserted value.

As of MySQL 5.5.29, negative values for AUTO_INCREMENT columns are not supported.

11.2.6 Out-of-Range and Overflow Handling

When MySQL stores a value in a numeric column that is outside the permissible range of the column data type, the result depends on the SQL mode in effect at the time:

  • If strict SQL mode is enabled, MySQL rejects the out-of-range value with an error, and the insert fails, in accordance with the SQL standard.

  • If no restrictive modes are enabled, MySQL clips the value to the appropriate endpoint of the range and stores the resulting value instead.

    When an out-of-range value is assigned to an integer column, MySQL stores the value representing the corresponding endpoint of the column data type range. If you store 256 into a TINYINT or TINYINT UNSIGNED column, MySQL stores 127 or 255, respectively.

    When a floating-point or fixed-point column is assigned a value that exceeds the range implied by the specified (or default) precision and scale, MySQL stores the value representing the corresponding endpoint of that range.

Column-assignment conversions that occur due to clipping when MySQL is not operating in strict mode are reported as warnings for ALTER TABLE, LOAD DATA INFILE, UPDATE, and multiple-row INSERT statements. In strict mode, these statements fail, and some or all the values will not be inserted or changed, depending on whether the table is a transactional table and other factors. For details, see Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.

As of MySQL 5.5.5, overflow during numeric expression evaluation results in an error. For example, the largest signed BIGINT value is 9223372036854775807, so the following expression produces an error:

mysql> SELECT 9223372036854775807 + 1;
ERROR 1690 (22003): BIGINT value is out of range in '(9223372036854775807 + 1)'

To enable the operation to succeed in this case, convert the value to unsigned;

mysql> SELECT CAST(9223372036854775807 AS UNSIGNED) + 1;
+-------------------------------------------+
| CAST(9223372036854775807 AS UNSIGNED) + 1 |
+-------------------------------------------+
|                       9223372036854775808 |
+-------------------------------------------+

Whether overflow occurs depends on the range of the operands, so another way to handle the preceding expression is to use exact-value arithmetic because DECIMAL values have a larger range than integers:

mysql> SELECT 9223372036854775807.0 + 1;
+---------------------------+
| 9223372036854775807.0 + 1 |
+---------------------------+
|     9223372036854775808.0 |
+---------------------------+

Before MySQL 5.5.5, overflow handling during numeric expression evaluation depends on the types of the operands:

  • Integer overflow results in silent wraparound.

  • DECIMAL overflow results in a truncated result and a warning.

  • Floating-point overflow produces a NULL result.

Subtraction between integer values, where one is of type UNSIGNED, produces an unsigned result by default. Prior to MySQL 5.5.5, if the result would otherwise have been negative, it becomes the maximum integer value:

mysql> SET sql_mode = '';
mysql> SELECT CAST(0 AS UNSIGNED) - 1;
+-------------------------+
| CAST(0 AS UNSIGNED) - 1 |
+-------------------------+
|    18446744073709551615 |
+-------------------------+

As of MySQL 5.5.5, if the result would otherwise have been negative, an error results:

mysql> SET sql_mode = '';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT CAST(0 AS UNSIGNED) - 1;
ERROR 1690 (22003): BIGINT UNSIGNED value is out of range in '(cast(0 as unsigned) - 1)'

If the NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION SQL mode is enabled, the result is negative:

mysql> SET sql_mode = 'NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION';
mysql> SELECT CAST(0 AS UNSIGNED) - 1;
+-------------------------+
| CAST(0 AS UNSIGNED) - 1 |
+-------------------------+
|                      -1 |
+-------------------------+

If the result of such an operation is used to update an UNSIGNED integer column, the result is clipped to the maximum value for the column type, or clipped to 0 if NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION is enabled. If strict SQL mode is enabled, an error occurs and the column remains unchanged.

11.3 Date and Time Types

The date and time types for representing temporal values are DATE, TIME, DATETIME, TIMESTAMP, and YEAR. Each temporal type has a range of valid values, as well as a zero value that may be used when you specify an invalid value that MySQL cannot represent. The TIMESTAMP type has special automatic updating behavior, described later. For temporal type storage requirements, see Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements”.

Keep in mind these general considerations when working with date and time types:

  • MySQL retrieves values for a given date or time type in a standard output format, but it attempts to interpret a variety of formats for input values that you supply (for example, when you specify a value to be assigned to or compared to a date or time type). For a description of the permitted formats for date and time types, see Section 9.1.3, “Date and Time Literals”. It is expected that you supply valid values. Unpredictable results may occur if you use values in other formats.

  • Although MySQL tries to interpret values in several formats, date parts must always be given in year-month-day order (for example, '98-09-04'), rather than in the month-day-year or day-month-year orders commonly used elsewhere (for example, '09-04-98', '04-09-98').

  • Dates containing two-digit year values are ambiguous because the century is unknown. MySQL interprets two-digit year values using these rules:

    • Year values in the range 70-99 are converted to 1970-1999.

    • Year values in the range 00-69 are converted to 2000-2069.

    See also Section 11.3.8, “Two-Digit Years in Dates”.

  • Conversion of values from one temporal type to another occurs according to the rules in Section 11.3.7, “Conversion Between Date and Time Types”.

  • MySQL automatically converts a date or time value to a number if the value is used in a numeric context and vice versa.

  • By default, when MySQL encounters a value for a date or time type that is out of range or otherwise invalid for the type, it converts the value to the zero value for that type. The exception is that out-of-range TIME values are clipped to the appropriate endpoint of the TIME range.

  • By setting the SQL mode to the appropriate value, you can specify more exactly what kind of dates you want MySQL to support. (See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.) You can get MySQL to accept certain dates, such as '2009-11-31', by enabling the ALLOW_INVALID_DATES SQL mode. This is useful when you want to store a possibly wrong value which the user has specified (for example, in a web form) in the database for future processing. Under this mode, MySQL verifies only that the month is in the range from 1 to 12 and that the day is in the range from 1 to 31.

  • MySQL permits you to store dates where the day or month and day are zero in a DATE or DATETIME column. This is useful for applications that need to store birthdates for which you may not know the exact date. In this case, you simply store the date as '2009-00-00' or '2009-01-00'. If you store dates such as these, you should not expect to get correct results for functions such as DATE_SUB() or DATE_ADD() that require complete dates. To disallow zero month or day parts in dates, enable the NO_ZERO_IN_DATE SQL mode.

  • MySQL permits you to store a zero value of '0000-00-00' as a dummy date. This is in some cases more convenient than using NULL values, and uses less data and index space. To disallow '0000-00-00', enable the NO_ZERO_DATE SQL mode.

  • Zero date or time values used through Connector/ODBC are converted automatically to NULL because ODBC cannot handle such values.

The following table shows the format of the zero value for each type. The zero values are special, but you can store or refer to them explicitly using the values shown in the table. You can also do this using the values '0' or 0, which are easier to write. For temporal types that include a date part (DATE, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP), use of these values produces warnings if the NO_ZERO_DATE SQL mode is enabled.

Data TypeZero Value
DATE'0000-00-00'
TIME'00:00:00'
DATETIME'0000-00-00 00:00:00'
TIMESTAMP'0000-00-00 00:00:00'
YEAR0000

11.3.1 The DATE, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP Types

The DATE, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP types are related. This section describes their characteristics, how they are similar, and how they differ. MySQL recognizes DATE, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP values in several formats, described in Section 9.1.3, “Date and Time Literals”. For the DATE and DATETIME range descriptions, supported means that although earlier values might work, there is no guarantee.

The DATE type is used for values with a date part but no time part. MySQL retrieves and displays DATE values in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format. The supported range is '1000-01-01' to '9999-12-31'.

The DATETIME type is used for values that contain both date and time parts. MySQL retrieves and displays DATETIME values in 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' format. The supported range is '1000-01-01 00:00:00' to '9999-12-31 23:59:59'.

The TIMESTAMP data type is used for values that contain both date and time parts. TIMESTAMP has a range of '1970-01-01 00:00:01' UTC to '2038-01-19 03:14:07' UTC.

MySQL converts TIMESTAMP values from the current time zone to UTC for storage, and back from UTC to the current time zone for retrieval. (This does not occur for other types such as DATETIME.) By default, the current time zone for each connection is the server's time. The time zone can be set on a per-connection basis. As long as the time zone setting remains constant, you get back the same value you store. If you store a TIMESTAMP value, and then change the time zone and retrieve the value, the retrieved value is different from the value you stored. This occurs because the same time zone was not used for conversion in both directions. The current time zone is available as the value of the time_zone system variable. For more information, see Section 10.6, “MySQL Server Time Zone Support”.

The TIMESTAMP data type offers automatic initialization and updating to the current date and time. For more information, see Section 11.3.5, “Automatic Initialization and Updating for TIMESTAMP”.

A DATETIME or TIMESTAMP value can include a trailing fractional seconds part in up to microseconds (6 digits) precision. Although this fractional part is recognized, it is discarded from values stored into DATETIME or TIMESTAMP columns. For information about fractional seconds support in MySQL, see Section 11.3.6, “Fractional Seconds in Time Values”.

Invalid DATE, DATETIME, or TIMESTAMP values are converted to the zero value of the appropriate type ('0000-00-00' or '0000-00-00 00:00:00').

Be aware of certain properties of date value interpretation in MySQL:

  • MySQL permits a relaxed format for values specified as strings, in which any punctuation character may be used as the delimiter between date parts or time parts. In some cases, this syntax can be deceiving. For example, a value such as '10:11:12' might look like a time value because of the : delimiter, but is interpreted as the year '2010-11-12' if used in a date context. The value '10:45:15' is converted to '0000-00-00' because '45' is not a valid month.

  • The server requires that month and day values be valid, and not merely in the range 1 to 12 and 1 to 31, respectively. With strict mode disabled, invalid dates such as '2004-04-31' are converted to '0000-00-00' and a warning is generated. With strict mode enabled, invalid dates generate an error. To permit such dates, enable ALLOW_INVALID_DATES. See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”, for more information.

  • MySQL does not accept TIMESTAMP values that include a zero in the day or month column or values that are not a valid date. The sole exception to this rule is the special zero value '0000-00-00 00:00:00'.

  • In MySQL 5.5, CAST() treats a TIMESTAMP value as a string when not selecting from a table. (This is true even if you specify FROM DUAL.) See Section 12.10, “Cast Functions and Operators”.

  • Dates containing two-digit year values are ambiguous because the century is unknown. MySQL interprets two-digit year values using these rules:

    • Year values in the range 00-69 are converted to 2000-2069.

    • Year values in the range 70-99 are converted to 1970-1999.

    See also Section 11.3.8, “Two-Digit Years in Dates”.

Note

The MySQL server can be run with the MAXDB SQL mode enabled. In this case, TIMESTAMP is identical with DATETIME. If this mode is enabled at the time that a table is created, TIMESTAMP columns are created as DATETIME columns. As a result, such columns use DATETIME display format, have the same range of values, and there is no automatic initialization or updating to the current date and time. See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.

11.3.2 The TIME Type

MySQL retrieves and displays TIME values in 'HH:MM:SS' format (or 'HHH:MM:SS' format for large hours values). TIME values may range from '-838:59:59' to '838:59:59'. The hours part may be so large because the TIME type can be used not only to represent a time of day (which must be less than 24 hours), but also elapsed time or a time interval between two events (which may be much greater than 24 hours, or even negative).

MySQL recognizes TIME values in several formats, described in Section 9.1.3, “Date and Time Literals”. Some of these formats can include a trailing fractional seconds part in up to microseconds (6 digits) precision. Although this fractional part is recognized, it is discarded from values stored into TIME columns. For information about fractional seconds support in MySQL, see Section 11.3.6, “Fractional Seconds in Time Values”.

Be careful about assigning abbreviated values to a TIME column. MySQL interprets abbreviated TIME values with colons as time of the day. That is, '11:12' means '11:12:00', not '00:11:12'. MySQL interprets abbreviated values without colons using the assumption that the two rightmost digits represent seconds (that is, as elapsed time rather than as time of day). For example, you might think of '1112' and 1112 as meaning '11:12:00' (12 minutes after 11 o'clock), but MySQL interprets them as '00:11:12' (11 minutes, 12 seconds). Similarly, '12' and 12 are interpreted as '00:00:12'.

By default, values that lie outside the TIME range but are otherwise valid are clipped to the closest endpoint of the range. For example, '-850:00:00' and '850:00:00' are converted to '-838:59:59' and '838:59:59'. Invalid TIME values are converted to '00:00:00'. Note that because '00:00:00' is itself a valid TIME value, there is no way to tell, from a value of '00:00:00' stored in a table, whether the original value was specified as '00:00:00' or whether it was invalid.

For more restrictive treatment of invalid TIME values, enable strict SQL mode to cause errors to occur. See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.

11.3.3 The YEAR Type

The YEAR type is a 1-byte type used to represent year values. It can be declared as YEAR(4) or YEAR(2) to specify a display width of four or two characters. The default is four characters if no width is given.

Note

The YEAR(2) data type has certain issues that you should consider before choosing to use it. As of MySQL 5.5.27, YEAR(2) is deprecated. For more information, see Section 11.3.4, “YEAR(2) Limitations and Migrating to YEAR(4)”.

YEAR(4) and YEAR(2) differ in display format, but have the same range of values. For 4-digit format, MySQL displays YEAR values in YYYY format, with a range of 1901 to 2155, or 0000. For 2-digit format, MySQL displays only the last two (least significant) digits; for example, 70 (1970 or 2070) or 69 (2069).

You can specify input YEAR values in a variety of formats:

  • As a 4-digit number in the range 1901 to 2155.

  • As a 4-digit string in the range '1901' to '2155'.

  • As a 1- or 2-digit number in the range 1 to 99. MySQL converts values in the ranges 1 to 69 and 70 to 99 to YEAR values in the ranges 2001 to 2069 and 1970 to 1999.

  • As a 1- or 2-digit string in the range '0' to '99'. MySQL converts values in the ranges '0' to '69' and '70' to '99' to YEAR values in the ranges 2000 to 2069 and 1970 to 1999.

  • Inserting a numeric 0 has a different effect for YEAR(2) and YEAR(4). For YEAR(2), the result has a display value of 00 and an internal value of 2000. For YEAR(4), the result has a display value of 0000 and an internal value of 0000. To specify zero for YEAR(4) and have it be interpreted as 2000, specify it as a string '0' or '00'.

  • As the result of a function that returns a value that is acceptable in a YEAR context, such as NOW().

MySQL converts invalid YEAR values to 0000.

See also Section 11.3.8, “Two-Digit Years in Dates”.

11.3.4 YEAR(2) Limitations and Migrating to YEAR(4)

This section describes problems that can occur when using YEAR(2) and provides information about converting existing YEAR(2) columns to YEAR(4).

Although the internal range of values for YEAR(4) and YEAR(2) is the same (1901 to 2155, and 0000), the display width for YEAR(2) makes that type inherently ambiguous because displayed values indicate only the last two digits of the internal values and omit the century digits. The result can be a loss of information under certain circumstances. For this reason, consider avoiding YEAR(2) throughout your applications and using YEAR(4) wherever you need a YEAR data type. Note that conversion will become necessary at some point because support for YEAR data types with display values other than 4, most notably YEAR(2), is reduced as of MySQL 5.6.6 and will be removed entirely in a future release.

YEAR(2) Limitations

Issues with the YEAR(2) data type include ambiguity of displayed values, and possible loss of information when values are dumped and reloaded or converted to strings.

  • Displayed YEAR(2) values can be ambiguous. It is possible for up to three YEAR(2) values that have different internal values to have the same displayed value, as the following example demonstrates:

    mysql> CREATE TABLE t (y2 YEAR(2), y4 YEAR(4));
    Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
    
    mysql> INSERT INTO t (y2) VALUES(1912),(2012),(2112);
    Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.00 sec)
    Records: 3  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0
    
    mysql> UPDATE t SET y4 = y2;
    Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.00 sec)
    Rows matched: 3  Changed: 3  Warnings: 0
    
    mysql> SELECT * FROM t;
    +------+------+
    | y2   | y4   |
    +------+------+
    |   12 | 1912 |
    |   12 | 2012 |
    |   12 | 2112 |
    +------+------+
    3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
    
  • If you use mysqldump to dump the table created in the preceding item, the dump file represents all y2 values using the same 2-digit representation (12). If you reload the table from the dump file, all resulting rows have internal value 2012 and display value 12, thus losing the distinctions among them.

  • Conversion of a YEAR(2) or YEAR(4) data value to string form uses the display width of the YEAR type. Suppose that YEAR(2) and YEAR(4) columns both contain the value 1970. Assigning each column to a string results in a value of '70' or '1970', respectively. That is, loss of information occurs for conversion from YEAR(2) to string.

  • Values outside the range from 1970 to 2069 are stored incorrectly when inserted into a YEAR(2) column in a CSV table. For example, inserting 2111 results in a display value of 11 but an internal value of 2011.

To avoid these problems, use YEAR(4) rather than YEAR(2). Suggestions regarding migration strategies appear later in this section.

Migrating from YEAR(2) to YEAR(4)

To convert YEAR(2) columns to YEAR(4), use ALTER TABLE. Suppose that a table t1 has this definition:

CREATE TABLE t1 (ycol YEAR(2) NOT NULL DEFAULT '70');

Modify the column using ALTER TABLE as follows. Remember to include any column attributes such as NOT NULL or DEFAULT:

ALTER TABLE t1 MODIFY ycol YEAR(4) NOT NULL DEFAULT '1970';

The ALTER TABLE statement converts the table without changing YEAR(2) values. If the server is a replication master, the ALTER TABLE statement replicates to slaves and makes the corresponding table change on each one.

One migration method should be avoided: Do not dump your data with mysqldump and reload the dump file after upgrading. This has the potential to change YEAR(2) values, as described previously.

A migration from YEAR(2) to YEAR(4) should also involve examining application code for the possibility of changed behavior under conditions such as these:

  • Code that expects selecting a YEAR column to produce exactly two digits.

  • Code that does not account for different handling for inserts of numeric 0: Inserting 0 into YEAR(2) or YEAR(4) results in an internal value of 2000 or 0000, respectively.

11.3.5 Automatic Initialization and Updating for TIMESTAMP

Note

In older versions of MySQL (prior to 4.1), the properties of the TIMESTAMP data type differed significantly in several ways from what is described in this section (see the MySQL 3.23, 4.0, 4.1 Reference Manual for details); these include syntax extensions which are deprecated in MySQL 5.1, and no longer supported in MySQL 5.5. This has implications for performing a dump and restore or replicating between MySQL Server versions. If you are using columns that are defined using the old TIMESTAMP(N) syntax, see Section 2.11.1.1, “Upgrading from MySQL 5.1 to 5.5”, prior to upgrading to MySQL 5.5.

The TIMESTAMP data type offers automatic initialization and updating to the current date and time (that is, the current timestamp). You can choose whether to use these properties and which column should have them:

  • One TIMESTAMP column in a table can have the current timestamp as the default value for initializing the column, as the auto-update value, or both. It is not possible to have the current timestamp be the default value for one column and the auto-update value for another column.

  • If the column is auto-initialized, it is set to the current timestamp for inserted rows that specify no value for the column.

  • If the column is auto-updated, it is automatically updated to the current timestamp when the value of any other column in the row is changed from its current value. The column remains unchanged if all other columns are set to their current values. To prevent the column from updating when other columns change, explicitly set it to its current value. To update the column even when other columns do not change, explicitly set it to the value it should have (for example, set it to CURRENT_TIMESTAMP).

In addition, you can initialize or update any TIMESTAMP column to the current date and time by assigning it a NULL value, unless it has been defined with the NULL attribute to permit NULL values.

To specify automatic properties, use the DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP clauses. The order of the clauses does not matter. If both are present in a column definition, either can occur first. Any of the synonyms for CURRENT_TIMESTAMP have the same meaning as CURRENT_TIMESTAMP. These are CURRENT_TIMESTAMP(), NOW(), LOCALTIME, LOCALTIME(), LOCALTIMESTAMP, and LOCALTIMESTAMP().

Use of DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is specific to TIMESTAMP. The DEFAULT clause also can be used to specify a constant (nonautomatic) default value; for example, DEFAULT 0 or DEFAULT '2000-01-01 00:00:00'.

Note

The following examples that use DEFAULT 0 do not work if the NO_ZERO_DATE SQL mode is enabled because that mode causes zero date values (specified, for example, as 0 '0000-00-00 00:00:00') to be rejected. Be aware that the TRADITIONAL SQL mode includes NO_ZERO_DATE.

The following rules describe the possibilities for defining the first TIMESTAMP column in a table with the current timestamp for both the default and auto-update values, for one but not the other, or for neither:

  • With both DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, the column has the current timestamp for its default value and is automatically updated to the current timestamp.

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
      ts TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
    );
    
  • With neither DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP nor ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, it is the same as specifying both DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP.

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
      ts TIMESTAMP
    );
    
  • With a DEFAULT clause but no ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP clause, the column has the given default value and is not automatically updated to the current timestamp.

    The default depends on whether the DEFAULT clause specifies CURRENT_TIMESTAMP or a constant value. With CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, the default is the current timestamp.

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
      ts TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
    );
    

    With a constant, the default is the given value. In this case, the column has no automatic properties at all.

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
      ts TIMESTAMP DEFAULT 0
    );
    
  • With an ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP clause and a constant DEFAULT clause, the column is automatically updated to the current timestamp and has the given constant default value.

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
      ts TIMESTAMP DEFAULT 0 ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
    );
    
  • With an ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP clause but no DEFAULT clause, the column is automatically updated to the current timestamp. The default is 0 unless the column is defined with the NULL attribute, in which case the default is NULL.

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
      ts TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP      -- default 0
    );
    CREATE TABLE t2 (
      ts TIMESTAMP NULL ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP -- default NULL
    );
    

It need not be the first TIMESTAMP column in a table that is automatically initialized or updated to the current timestamp. However, to specify automatic initialization or updating for a different TIMESTAMP column, you must suppress the automatic properties for the first one. Then, for the other TIMESTAMP column, the rules for the DEFAULT and ON UPDATE clauses are the same as for the first TIMESTAMP column, except that if you omit both clauses, no automatic initialization or updating occurs.

To suppress automatic properties for the first TIMESTAMP column, do either of the following:

  • Define the column with a DEFAULT clause that specifies a constant default value.

  • Specify the NULL attribute. This also causes the column to permit NULL values, which means that you cannot assign the current timestamp by setting the column to NULL. Assigning NULL sets the column to NULL.

Consider these table definitions:

CREATE TABLE t1 (
  ts1 TIMESTAMP DEFAULT 0,
  ts2 TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
                ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
CREATE TABLE t2 (
  ts1 TIMESTAMP NULL,
  ts2 TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
                ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
CREATE TABLE t3 (
  ts1 TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT 0,
  ts2 TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
                ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);

The tables have these properties:

  • In each table definition, the first TIMESTAMP column has no automatic initialization or updating.

  • The tables differ in how the ts1 column handles NULL values. For t1, ts1 is NOT NULL and assigning it a value of NULL sets it to the current timestamp. For t2 and t3, ts1 permits NULL and assigning it a value of NULL sets it to NULL.

  • t2 and t3 differ in the default value for ts1. For t2, ts1 is defined to permit NULL, so the default is also NULL in the absence of an explicit DEFAULT clause. For t3, ts1 permits NULL but has an explicit default of 0.

TIMESTAMP Initialization and the NULL Attribute

By default, TIMESTAMP columns are NOT NULL, cannot contain NULL values, and assigning NULL assigns the current timestamp. To permit a TIMESTAMP column to contain NULL, explicitly declare it with the NULL attribute. In this case, the default value also becomes NULL unless overridden with a DEFAULT clause that specifies a different default value. DEFAULT NULL can be used to explicitly specify NULL as the default value. (For a TIMESTAMP column not declared with the NULL attribute, DEFAULT NULL is invalid.) If a TIMESTAMP column permits NULL values, assigning NULL sets it to NULL, not to the current timestamp.

The following table contains several TIMESTAMP columns that permit NULL values:

CREATE TABLE t
(
  ts1 TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT NULL,
  ts2 TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT 0,
  ts3 TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

A TIMESTAMP column that permits NULL values does not take on the current timestamp at insert time except under one of the following conditions:

In other words, a TIMESTAMP column defined to permit NULL values auto-initializes only if its definition includes DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP:

CREATE TABLE t (ts TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);

If the TIMESTAMP column permits NULL values but its definition does not include DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, you must explicitly insert a value corresponding to the current date and time. Suppose that tables t1 and t2 have these definitions:

CREATE TABLE t1 (ts TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00');
CREATE TABLE t2 (ts TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT NULL);

To set the TIMESTAMP column in either table to the current timestamp at insert time, explicitly assign it that value. For example:

INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (NOW());
INSERT INTO t2 VALUES (CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);

11.3.6 Fractional Seconds in Time Values

A trailing fractional seconds part is permissible for temporal values in contexts such as literal values, and in the arguments to or return values from some temporal functions. Example:

mysql> SELECT MICROSECOND('2010-12-10 14:12:09.019473');
+-------------------------------------------+
| MICROSECOND('2010-12-10 14:12:09.019473') |
+-------------------------------------------+
|                                     19473 |
+-------------------------------------------+

However, when MySQL stores a value into a column of any temporal data type, it discards any fractional part and does not store it.

11.3.7 Conversion Between Date and Time Types

To some extent, you can convert a value from one temporal type to another. However, there may be some alteration of the value or loss of information. In all cases, conversion between temporal types is subject to the range of valid values for the resulting type. For example, although DATE, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP values all can be specified using the same set of formats, the types do not all have the same range of values. TIMESTAMP values cannot be earlier than 1970 UTC or later than '2038-01-19 03:14:07' UTC. This means that a date such as '1968-01-01', while valid as a DATE or DATETIME value, is not valid as a TIMESTAMP value and is converted to 0.

Conversion of DATE values:

  • Conversion to a DATETIME or TIMESTAMP value adds a time part of '00:00:00' because the DATE value contains no time information.

  • Conversion to a TIME value is not useful; the result is '00:00:00'.

Conversion of DATETIME and TIMESTAMP values:

  • Conversion to a DATE value discards the time part because the DATE type contains no time information.

  • Conversion to a TIME value discards the date part because the TIME type contains no date information.

Conversion of TIME values:

MySQL converts a time value to a date or date-and-time value by parsing the string value of the time as a date or date-and-time. This is unlikely to be useful. For example, '23:12:31' interpreted as a date becomes '2023-12-31'. Time values not valid as dates become '0000-00-00' or NULL.

Explicit conversion can be used to override implicit conversion. For example, in comparison of DATE and DATETIME values, the DATE value is coerced to the DATETIME type by adding a time part of '00:00:00'. To perform the comparison by ignoring the time part of the DATETIME value instead, use the CAST() function in the following way:

date_col = CAST(datetime_col AS DATE)

Conversion of TIME or DATETIME values to numeric form (for example, by adding +0) results in a double-precision value with a microseconds part of .000000:

mysql> SELECT CURTIME(), CURTIME()+0;
+-----------+---------------+
| CURTIME() | CURTIME()+0   |
+-----------+---------------+
| 10:41:36  | 104136.000000 |
+-----------+---------------+
mysql> SELECT NOW(), NOW()+0;
+---------------------+-----------------------+
| NOW()               | NOW()+0               |
+---------------------+-----------------------+
| 2007-11-30 10:41:47 | 20071130104147.000000 |
+---------------------+-----------------------+

11.3.8 Two-Digit Years in Dates

Date values with two-digit years are ambiguous because the century is unknown. Such values must be interpreted into four-digit form because MySQL stores years internally using four digits.

For DATETIME, DATE, and TIMESTAMP types, MySQL interprets dates specified with ambiguous year values using these rules:

  • Year values in the range 00-69 are converted to 2000-2069.

  • Year values in the range 70-99 are converted to 1970-1999.

For YEAR, the rules are the same, with this exception: A numeric 00 inserted into YEAR(4) results in 0000 rather than 2000. To specify zero for YEAR(4) and have it be interpreted as 2000, specify it as a string '0' or '00'.

Remember that these rules are only heuristics that provide reasonable guesses as to what your data values mean. If the rules used by MySQL do not produce the values you require, you must provide unambiguous input containing four-digit year values.

ORDER BY properly sorts YEAR values that have two-digit years.

Some functions like MIN() and MAX() convert a YEAR to a number. This means that a value with a two-digit year does not work properly with these functions. The fix in this case is to convert the YEAR to four-digit year format.

11.4 String Types

The string types are CHAR, VARCHAR, BINARY, VARBINARY, BLOB, TEXT, ENUM, and SET. This section describes how these types work and how to use them in your queries. For string type storage requirements, see Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements”.

11.4.1 The CHAR and VARCHAR Types

The CHAR and VARCHAR types are similar, but differ in the way they are stored and retrieved. They also differ in maximum length and in whether trailing spaces are retained.

The CHAR and VARCHAR types are declared with a length that indicates the maximum number of characters you want to store. For example, CHAR(30) can hold up to 30 characters.

The length of a CHAR column is fixed to the length that you declare when you create the table. The length can be any value from 0 to 255. When CHAR values are stored, they are right-padded with spaces to the specified length. When CHAR values are retrieved, trailing spaces are removed unless the PAD_CHAR_TO_FULL_LENGTH SQL mode is enabled.

Values in VARCHAR columns are variable-length strings. The length can be specified as a value from 0 to 65,535. The effective maximum length of a VARCHAR is subject to the maximum row size (65,535 bytes, which is shared among all columns) and the character set used. See Section D.10.4, “Limits on Table Column Count and Row Size”.

In contrast to CHAR, VARCHAR values are stored as a 1-byte or 2-byte length prefix plus data. The length prefix indicates the number of bytes in the value. A column uses one length byte if values require no more than 255 bytes, two length bytes if values may require more than 255 bytes.

If strict SQL mode is not enabled and you assign a value to a CHAR or VARCHAR column that exceeds the column's maximum length, the value is truncated to fit and a warning is generated. For truncation of nonspace characters, you can cause an error to occur (rather than a warning) and suppress insertion of the value by using strict SQL mode. See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.

For VARCHAR columns, trailing spaces in excess of the column length are truncated prior to insertion and a warning is generated, regardless of the SQL mode in use. For CHAR columns, truncation of excess trailing spaces from inserted values is performed silently regardless of the SQL mode.

VARCHAR values are not padded when they are stored. Trailing spaces are retained when values are stored and retrieved, in conformance with standard SQL.

The following table illustrates the differences between CHAR and VARCHAR by showing the result of storing various string values into CHAR(4) and VARCHAR(4) columns (assuming that the column uses a single-byte character set such as latin1).

ValueCHAR(4)Storage RequiredVARCHAR(4)Storage Required
'''    '4 bytes''1 byte
'ab''ab  '4 bytes'ab'3 bytes
'abcd''abcd'4 bytes'abcd'5 bytes
'abcdefgh''abcd'4 bytes'abcd'5 bytes

The values shown as stored in the last row of the table apply only when not using strict mode; if MySQL is running in strict mode, values that exceed the column length are not stored, and an error results.

If a given value is stored into the CHAR(4) and VARCHAR(4) columns, the values retrieved from the columns are not always the same because trailing spaces are removed from CHAR columns upon retrieval. The following example illustrates this difference:

mysql> CREATE TABLE vc (v VARCHAR(4), c CHAR(4));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO vc VALUES ('ab  ', 'ab  ');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT CONCAT('(', v, ')'), CONCAT('(', c, ')') FROM vc;
+---------------------+---------------------+
| CONCAT('(', v, ')') | CONCAT('(', c, ')') |
+---------------------+---------------------+
| (ab  )              | (ab)                |
+---------------------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.06 sec)

Values in CHAR and VARCHAR columns are sorted and compared according to the character set collation assigned to the column.

All MySQL collations are of type PADSPACE. This means that all CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT values in MySQL are compared without regard to any trailing spaces. Comparison in this context does not include the LIKE pattern-matching operator, for which trailing spaces are significant. For example:

mysql> CREATE TABLE names (myname CHAR(10));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.03 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO names VALUES ('Monty');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT myname = 'Monty', myname = 'Monty  ' FROM names;
+------------------+--------------------+
| myname = 'Monty' | myname = 'Monty  ' |
+------------------+--------------------+
|                1 |                  1 |
+------------------+--------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT myname LIKE 'Monty', myname LIKE 'Monty  ' FROM names;
+---------------------+-----------------------+
| myname LIKE 'Monty' | myname LIKE 'Monty  ' |
+---------------------+-----------------------+
|                   1 |                     0 |
+---------------------+-----------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

This is true for all MySQL versions, and is not affected by the server SQL mode.

Note

For more information about MySQL character sets and collations, see Section 10.1, “Character Set Support”. For additional information about storage requirements, see Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements”.

For those cases where trailing pad characters are stripped or comparisons ignore them, if a column has an index that requires unique values, inserting into the column values that differ only in number of trailing pad characters will result in a duplicate-key error. For example, if a table contains 'a', an attempt to store 'a ' causes a duplicate-key error.

11.4.2 The BINARY and VARBINARY Types

The BINARY and VARBINARY types are similar to CHAR and VARCHAR, except that they contain binary strings rather than nonbinary strings. That is, they contain byte strings rather than character strings. This means that they have no character set, and sorting and comparison are based on the numeric values of the bytes in the values.

The permissible maximum length is the same for BINARY and VARBINARY as it is for CHAR and VARCHAR, except that the length for BINARY and VARBINARY is a length in bytes rather than in characters.

The BINARY and VARBINARY data types are distinct from the CHAR BINARY and VARCHAR BINARY data types. For the latter types, the BINARY attribute does not cause the column to be treated as a binary string column. Instead, it causes the binary collation for the column character set to be used, and the column itself contains nonbinary character strings rather than binary byte strings. For example, CHAR(5) BINARY is treated as CHAR(5) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_bin, assuming that the default character set is latin1. This differs from BINARY(5), which stores 5-bytes binary strings that have no character set or collation. For information about differences between nonbinary string binary collations and binary strings, see Section 10.1.7.6, “The _bin and binary Collations”.

If strict SQL mode is not enabled and you assign a value to a BINARY or VARBINARY column that exceeds the column's maximum length, the value is truncated to fit and a warning is generated. For cases of truncation, you can cause an error to occur (rather than a warning) and suppress insertion of the value by using strict SQL mode. See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.

When BINARY values are stored, they are right-padded with the pad value to the specified length. The pad value is 0x00 (the zero byte). Values are right-padded with 0x00 on insert, and no trailing bytes are removed on select. All bytes are significant in comparisons, including ORDER BY and DISTINCT operations. 0x00 bytes and spaces are different in comparisons, with 0x00 < space.

Example: For a BINARY(3) column, 'a ' becomes 'a \0' when inserted. 'a\0' becomes 'a\0\0' when inserted. Both inserted values remain unchanged when selected.

For VARBINARY, there is no padding on insert and no bytes are stripped on select. All bytes are significant in comparisons, including ORDER BY and DISTINCT operations. 0x00 bytes and spaces are different in comparisons, with 0x00 < space.

For those cases where trailing pad bytes are stripped or comparisons ignore them, if a column has an index that requires unique values, inserting into the column values that differ only in number of trailing pad bytes will result in a duplicate-key error. For example, if a table contains 'a', an attempt to store 'a\0' causes a duplicate-key error.

You should consider the preceding padding and stripping characteristics carefully if you plan to use the BINARY data type for storing binary data and you require that the value retrieved be exactly the same as the value stored. The following example illustrates how 0x00-padding of BINARY values affects column value comparisons:

mysql> CREATE TABLE t (c BINARY(3));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO t SET c = 'a';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> SELECT HEX(c), c = 'a', c = 'a\0\0' from t;
+--------+---------+-------------+
| HEX(c) | c = 'a' | c = 'a\0\0' |
+--------+---------+-------------+
| 610000 |       0 |           1 |
+--------+---------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.09 sec)

If the value retrieved must be the same as the value specified for storage with no padding, it might be preferable to use VARBINARY or one of the BLOB data types instead.

11.4.3 The BLOB and TEXT Types

A BLOB is a binary large object that can hold a variable amount of data. The four BLOB types are TINYBLOB, BLOB, MEDIUMBLOB, and LONGBLOB. These differ only in the maximum length of the values they can hold. The four TEXT types are TINYTEXT, TEXT, MEDIUMTEXT, and LONGTEXT. These correspond to the four BLOB types and have the same maximum lengths and storage requirements. See Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements”.

BLOB values are treated as binary strings (byte strings). They have no character set, and sorting and comparison are based on the numeric values of the bytes in column values. TEXT values are treated as nonbinary strings (character strings). They have a character set, and values are sorted and compared based on the collation of the character set.

If strict SQL mode is not enabled and you assign a value to a BLOB or TEXT column that exceeds the column's maximum length, the value is truncated to fit and a warning is generated. For truncation of nonspace characters, you can cause an error to occur (rather than a warning) and suppress insertion of the value by using strict SQL mode. See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.

Truncation of excess trailing spaces from values to be inserted into TEXT columns always generates a warning, regardless of the SQL mode.

For TEXT and BLOB columns, there is no padding on insert and no bytes are stripped on select.

If a TEXT column is indexed, index entry comparisons are space-padded at the end. This means that, if the index requires unique values, duplicate-key errors will occur for values that differ only in the number of trailing spaces. For example, if a table contains 'a', an attempt to store 'a ' causes a duplicate-key error. This is not true for BLOB columns.

In most respects, you can regard a BLOB column as a VARBINARY column that can be as large as you like. Similarly, you can regard a TEXT column as a VARCHAR column. BLOB and TEXT differ from VARBINARY and VARCHAR in the following ways:

If you use the BINARY attribute with a TEXT data type, the column is assigned the binary collation of the column character set.

LONG and LONG VARCHAR map to the MEDIUMTEXT data type. This is a compatibility feature.

MySQL Connector/ODBC defines BLOB values as LONGVARBINARY and TEXT values as LONGVARCHAR.

Because BLOB and TEXT values can be extremely long, you might encounter some constraints in using them:

Each BLOB or TEXT value is represented internally by a separately allocated object. This is in contrast to all other data types, for which storage is allocated once per column when the table is opened.

In some cases, it may be desirable to store binary data such as media files in BLOB or TEXT columns. You may find MySQL's string handling functions useful for working with such data. See Section 12.5, “String Functions”. For security and other reasons, it is usually preferable to do so using application code rather than giving application users the FILE privilege. You can discuss specifics for various languages and platforms in the MySQL Forums (http://forums.mysql.com/).

11.4.4 The ENUM Type

An ENUM is a string object with a value chosen from a list of permitted values that are enumerated explicitly in the column specification at table creation time. It has these advantages:

  • Compact data storage in situations where a column has a limited set of possible values. The strings you specify as input values are automatically encoded as numbers. See Section 11.7, “Data Type Storage Requirements” for the storage requirements for ENUM types.

  • Readable queries and output. The numbers are translated back to the corresponding strings in query results.

and these potential issues to consider:

  • If you make enumeration values that look like numbers, it is easy to mix up the literal values with their internal index numbers, as explained in Enumeration Limitations.

  • Using ENUM columns in ORDER BY clauses requires extra care, as explained in Enumeration Sorting.

Creating and Using ENUM Columns

An enumeration value must be a quoted string literal. For example, you can create a table with an ENUM column like this:

CREATE TABLE shirts (
    name VARCHAR(40),
    size ENUM('x-small', 'small', 'medium', 'large', 'x-large')
);
INSERT INTO shirts (name, size) VALUES ('dress shirt','large'), ('t-shirt','medium'),
  ('polo shirt','small');
SELECT name, size FROM shirts WHERE size = 'medium';
+---------+--------+
| name    | size   |
+---------+--------+
| t-shirt | medium |
+---------+--------+
UPDATE shirts SET size = 'small' WHERE size = 'large';
COMMIT;

Inserting 1 million rows into this table with a value of 'medium' would require 1 million bytes of storage, as opposed to 6 million bytes if you stored the actual string 'medium' in a VARCHAR column.

Index Values for Enumeration Literals

Each enumeration value has an index:

  • The elements listed in the column specification are assigned index numbers, beginning with 1.

  • The index value of the empty string error value is 0. This means that you can use the following SELECT statement to find rows into which invalid ENUM values were assigned:

    mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE enum_col=0;
    
  • The index of the NULL value is NULL.

  • The term index here refers to a position within the list of enumeration values. It has nothing to do with table indexes.

For example, a column specified as ENUM('Mercury', 'Venus', 'Earth') can have any of the values shown here. The index of each value is also shown.

ValueIndex
NULLNULL
''0
'Mercury'1
'Venus'2
'Earth'3

An ENUM column can have a maximum of 65,535 distinct elements. (The practical limit is less than 3000.) A table can have no more than 255 unique element list definitions among its ENUM and SET columns considered as a group. For more information on these limits, see Section D.10.5, “Limits Imposed by .frm File Structure”.

If you retrieve an ENUM value in a numeric context, the column value's index is returned. For example, you can retrieve numeric values from an ENUM column like this:

mysql> SELECT enum_col+0 FROM tbl_name;

Functions such as SUM() or AVG() that expect a numeric argument cast the argument to a number if necessary. For ENUM values, the index number is used in the calculation.

Handling of Enumeration Literals

Trailing spaces are automatically deleted from ENUM member values in the table definition when a table is created.

When retrieved, values stored into an ENUM column are displayed using the lettercase that was used in the column definition. Note that ENUM columns can be assigned a character set and collation. For binary or case-sensitive collations, lettercase is taken into account when assigning values to the column.

If you store a number into an ENUM column, the number is treated as the index into the possible values, and the value stored is the enumeration member with that index. (However, this does not work with LOAD DATA, which treats all input as strings.) If the numeric value is quoted, it is still interpreted as an index if there is no matching string in the list of enumeration values. For these reasons, it is not advisable to define an ENUM column with enumeration values that look like numbers, because this can easily become confusing. For example, the following column has enumeration members with string values of '0', '1', and '2', but numeric index values of 1, 2, and 3:

numbers ENUM('0','1','2')

If you store 2, it is interpreted as an index value, and becomes '1' (the value with index 2). If you store '2', it matches an enumeration value, so it is stored as '2'. If you store '3', it does not match any enumeration value, so it is treated as an index and becomes '2' (the value with index 3).

mysql> INSERT INTO t (numbers) VALUES(2),('2'),('3');
mysql> SELECT * FROM t;
+---------+
| numbers |
+---------+
| 1       |
| 2       |
| 2       |
+---------+

To determine all possible values for an ENUM column, use SHOW COLUMNS FROM tbl_name LIKE 'enum_col' and parse the ENUM definition in the Type column of the output.

In the C API, ENUM values are returned as strings. For information about using result set metadata to distinguish them from other strings, see Section 23.8.5, “C API Data Structures”.

Empty or NULL Enumeration Values

An enumeration value can also be the empty string ('') or NULL under certain circumstances:

  • If you insert an invalid value into an ENUM (that is, a string not present in the list of permitted values), the empty string is inserted instead as a special error value. This string can be distinguished from a normal empty string by the fact that this string has the numeric value 0. See Index Values for Enumeration Literals for details about the numeric indexes for the enumeration values.

    If strict SQL mode is enabled, attempts to insert invalid ENUM values result in an error.

  • If an ENUM column is declared to permit NULL, the NULL value is a valid value for the column, and the default value is NULL. If an ENUM column is declared NOT NULL, its default value is the first element of the list of permitted values.

Enumeration Sorting

ENUM values are sorted based on their index numbers, which depend on the order in which the enumeration members were listed in the column specification. For example, 'b' sorts before 'a' for ENUM('b', 'a'). The empty string sorts before nonempty strings, and NULL values sort before all other enumeration values.

To prevent unexpected results when using the ORDER BY clause on an ENUM column, use one of these techniques:

  • Specify the ENUM list in alphabetic order.

  • Make sure that the column is sorted lexically rather than by index number by coding ORDER BY CAST(col AS CHAR) or ORDER BY CONCAT(col).

Enumeration Limitations

An enumeration value cannot be an expression, even one that evaluates to a string value.

For example, this CREATE TABLE statement does not work because the CONCAT function cannot be used to construct an enumeration value:

CREATE TABLE sizes (
    size ENUM('small', CONCAT('med','ium'), 'large')
);

You also cannot employ a user variable as an enumeration value. This pair of statements do not work:

SET @mysize = 'medium';

CREATE TABLE sizes (
    size ENUM('small', @mysize, 'large')
);

We strongly recommend that you do not use numbers as enumeration values, because it does not save on storage over the appropriate TINYINT or SMALLINT type, and it is easy to mix up the strings and the underlying number values (which might not be the same) if you quote the ENUM values incorrectly. If you do use a number as an enumeration value, always enclose it in quotation marks. If the quotation marks are omitted, the number is regarded as an index. See Handling of Enumeration Literals to see how even a quoted number could be mistakenly used as a numeric index value.

Duplicate values in the definition cause a warning, or an error if strict SQL mode is enabled.

11.4.5 The SET Type

A SET is a string object that can have zero or more values, each of which must be chosen from a list of permitted values specified when the table is created. SET column values that consist of multiple set members are specified with members separated by commas (,). A consequence of this is that SET member values should not themselves contain commas.

For example, a column specified as SET('one', 'two') NOT NULL can have any of these values:

''
'one'
'two'
'one,two'

A SET column can have a maximum of 64 distinct members. A table can have no more than 255 unique element list definitions among its ENUM and SET columns considered as a group. For more information on this limit, see Section D.10.5, “Limits Imposed by .frm File Structure”.

Duplicate values in the definition cause a warning, or an error if strict SQL mode is enabled.

Trailing spaces are automatically deleted from SET member values in the table definition when a table is created.

When retrieved, values stored in a SET column are displayed using the lettercase that was used in the column definition. Note that SET columns can be assigned a character set and collation. For binary or case-sensitive collations, lettercase is taken into account when assigning values to the column.

MySQL stores SET values numerically, with the low-order bit of the stored value corresponding to the first set member. If you retrieve a SET value in a numeric context, the value retrieved has bits set corresponding to the set members that make up the column value. For example, you can retrieve numeric values from a SET column like this:

mysql> SELECT set_col+0 FROM tbl_name;

If a number is stored into a SET column, the bits that are set in the binary representation of the number determine the set members in the column value. For a column specified as SET('a','b','c','d'), the members have the following decimal and binary values.

SET MemberDecimal ValueBinary Value
'a'10001
'b'20010
'c'40100
'd'81000

If you assign a value of 9 to this column, that is 1001 in binary, so the first and fourth SET value members 'a' and 'd' are selected and the resulting value is 'a,d'.

For a value containing more than one SET element, it does not matter what order the elements are listed in when you insert the value. It also does not matter how many times a given element is listed in the value. When the value is retrieved later, each element in the value appears once, with elements listed according to the order in which they were specified at table creation time. For example, suppose that a column is specified as SET('a','b','c','d'):

mysql> CREATE TABLE myset (col SET('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'));

If you insert the values 'a,d', 'd,a', 'a,d,d', 'a,d,a', and 'd,a,d':

mysql> INSERT INTO myset (col) VALUES 
-> ('a,d'), ('d,a'), ('a,d,a'), ('a,d,d'), ('d,a,d');
Query OK, 5 rows affected (0.01 sec)
Records: 5  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

Then all these values appear as 'a,d' when retrieved:

mysql> SELECT col FROM myset;
+------+
| col  |
+------+
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
+------+
5 rows in set (0.04 sec)

If you set a SET column to an unsupported value, the value is ignored and a warning is issued:

mysql> INSERT INTO myset (col) VALUES ('a,d,d,s');
Query OK, 1 row affected, 1 warning (0.03 sec)

mysql> SHOW WARNINGS;
+---------+------+------------------------------------------+
| Level   | Code | Message                                  |
+---------+------+------------------------------------------+
| Warning | 1265 | Data truncated for column 'col' at row 1 |
+---------+------+------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.04 sec)

mysql> SELECT col FROM myset;
+------+
| col  |
+------+
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
| a,d  |
+------+
6 rows in set (0.01 sec)

If strict SQL mode is enabled, attempts to insert invalid SET values result in an error.

SET values are sorted numerically. NULL values sort before non-NULL SET values.

Functions such as SUM() or AVG() that expect a numeric argument cast the argument to a number if necessary. For SET values, the cast operation causes the numeric value to be used.

Normally, you search for SET values using the FIND_IN_SET() function or the LIKE operator:

mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE FIND_IN_SET('value',set_col)>0;
mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE set_col LIKE '%value%';

The first statement finds rows where set_col contains the value set member. The second is similar, but not the same: It finds rows where set_col contains value anywhere, even as a substring of another set member.

The following statements also are permitted:

mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE set_col & 1;
mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE set_col = 'val1,val2';

The first of these statements looks for values containing the first set member. The second looks for an exact match. Be careful with comparisons of the second type. Comparing set values to 'val1,val2' returns different results than comparing values to 'val2,val1'. You should specify the values in the same order they are listed in the column definition.

To determine all possible values for a SET column, use SHOW COLUMNS FROM tbl_name LIKE set_col and parse the SET definition in the Type column of the output.

In the C API, SET values are returned as strings. For information about using result set metadata to distinguish them from other strings, see Section 23.8.5, “C API Data Structures”.

11.5 Extensions for Spatial Data

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is is an international consortium of more than 250 companies, agencies, and universities participating in the development of publicly available conceptual solutions that can be useful with all kinds of applications that manage spatial data.

The Open Geospatial Consortium publishes the OpenGIS® Implementation Standard for Geographic information - Simple feature access - Part 2: SQL option, a document that proposes several conceptual ways for extending an SQL RDBMS to support spatial data. This specification is available from the OGC Web site at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/sfs.

Following the OGC specification, MySQL implements spatial extensions as a subset of the SQL with Geometry Types environment. This term refers to an SQL environment that has been extended with a set of geometry types. A geometry-valued SQL column is implemented as a column that has a geometry type. The specification describes a set of SQL geometry types, as well as functions on those types to create and analyze geometry values.

MySQL spatial extensions enable the generation, storage, and analysis of geographic features:

  • Data types for representing spatial values

  • Functions for manipulating spatial values

  • Spatial indexing for improved access times to spatial columns

The data types and functions are available for MyISAM, InnoDB, NDB, and ARCHIVE tables. For indexing spatial columns, MyISAM supports both SPATIAL and non-SPATIAL indexes. The other storage engines support non-SPATIAL indexes, as described in Section 13.1.13, “CREATE INDEX Syntax”.

A geographic feature is anything in the world that has a location. A feature can be:

  • An entity. For example, a mountain, a pond, a city.

  • A space. For example, town district, the tropics.

  • A definable location. For example, a crossroad, as a particular place where two streets intersect.

Some documents use the term geospatial feature to refer to geographic features.

Geometry is another word that denotes a geographic feature. Originally the word geometry meant measurement of the earth. Another meaning comes from cartography, referring to the geometric features that cartographers use to map the world.

The discussion here considers these terms synonymous: geographic feature, geospatial feature, feature, or geometry. The term most commonly used is geometry, defined as a point or an aggregate of points representing anything in the world that has a location.

The following material covers these topics:

  • The spatial data types implemented in MySQL model

  • The basis of the spatial extensions in the OpenGIS geometry model

  • Data formats for representing spatial data

  • How to use spatial data in MySQL

  • Use of indexing for spatial data

  • MySQL differences from the OpenGIS specification

For information about functions that operate on spatial data, see Section 12.15, “Spatial Analysis Functions”.

MySQL GIS Conformance and Compatibility

MySQL does not implement the following GIS features:

  • Additional Metadata Views

    OpenGIS specifications propose several additional metadata views. For example, a system view named GEOMETRY_COLUMNS contains a description of geometry columns, one row for each geometry column in the database.

  • The OpenGIS function Length() on LineString and MultiLineString should be called in MySQL as GLength()

    The problem is that there is an existing SQL function Length() that calculates the length of string values, and sometimes it is not possible to distinguish whether the function is called in a textual or spatial context.

Additional Resources

  • The Open Geospatial Consortium publishes the OpenGIS® Implementation Standard for Geographic information - Simple feature access - Part 2: SQL option, a document that proposes several conceptual ways for extending an SQL RDBMS to support spatial data. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) maintains a Web site at http://www.opengeospatial.org/. The specification is available there at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/sfs. It contains additional information relevant to the material here.

  • If you have questions or concerns about the use of the spatial extensions to MySQL, you can discuss them in the GIS forum: http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?23.

11.5.1 Spatial Data Types

MySQL has data types that correspond to OpenGIS classes. Some of these types hold single geometry values:

  • GEOMETRY

  • POINT

  • LINESTRING

  • POLYGON

GEOMETRY can store geometry values of any type. The other single-value types (POINT, LINESTRING, and POLYGON) restrict their values to a particular geometry type.

The other data types hold collections of values:

  • MULTIPOINT

  • MULTILINESTRING

  • MULTIPOLYGON

  • GEOMETRYCOLLECTION

GEOMETRYCOLLECTION can store a collection of objects of any type. The other collection types (MULTIPOINT, MULTILINESTRING, MULTIPOLYGON, and GEOMETRYCOLLECTION) restrict collection members to those having a particular geometry type.

MySQL spatial data types have their basis in the OpenGIS geometry model, described in Section 11.5.2, “The OpenGIS Geometry Model”. For examples showing how to use spatial data types in MySQL, see Section 11.5.3, “Using Spatial Data”.

11.5.2 The OpenGIS Geometry Model

The set of geometry types proposed by OGC's SQL with Geometry Types environment is based on the OpenGIS Geometry Model. In this model, each geometric object has the following general properties:

  • It is associated with a Spatial Reference System, which describes the coordinate space in which the object is defined.

  • It belongs to some geometry class.

11.5.2.1 The Geometry Class Hierarchy

The geometry classes define a hierarchy as follows:

  • Geometry (noninstantiable)

    • Point (instantiable)

    • Curve (noninstantiable)

      • LineString (instantiable)

        • Line

        • LinearRing

    • Surface (noninstantiable)

      • Polygon (instantiable)

    • GeometryCollection (instantiable)

      • MultiPoint (instantiable)

      • MultiCurve (noninstantiable)

        • MultiLineString (instantiable)

      • MultiSurface (noninstantiable)

        • MultiPolygon (instantiable)

It is not possible to create objects in noninstantiable classes. It is possible to create objects in instantiable classes. All classes have properties, and instantiable classes may also have assertions (rules that define valid class instances).

Geometry is the base class. It is an abstract class. The instantiable subclasses of Geometry are restricted to zero-, one-, and two-dimensional geometric objects that exist in two-dimensional coordinate space. All instantiable geometry classes are defined so that valid instances of a geometry class are topologically closed (that is, all defined geometries include their boundary).

The base Geometry class has subclasses for Point, Curve, Surface, and GeometryCollection:

  • Point represents zero-dimensional objects.

  • Curve represents one-dimensional objects, and has subclass LineString, with sub-subclasses Line and LinearRing.

  • Surface is designed for two-dimensional objects and has subclass Polygon.

  • GeometryCollection has specialized zero-, one-, and two-dimensional collection classes named MultiPoint, MultiLineString, and MultiPolygon for modeling geometries corresponding to collections of Points, LineStrings, and Polygons, respectively. MultiCurve and MultiSurface are introduced as abstract superclasses that generalize the collection interfaces to handle Curves and Surfaces.

Geometry, Curve, Surface, MultiCurve, and MultiSurface are defined as noninstantiable classes. They define a common set of methods for their subclasses and are included for extensibility.

Point, LineString, Polygon, GeometryCollection, MultiPoint, MultiLineString, and MultiPolygon are instantiable classes.

11.5.2.2 Geometry Class

Geometry is the root class of the hierarchy. It is a noninstantiable class but has a number of properties, described in the following list, that are common to all geometry values created from any of the Geometry subclasses. Particular subclasses have their own specific properties, described later.

Geometry Properties

A geometry value has the following properties:

  • Its type. Each geometry belongs to one of the instantiable classes in the hierarchy.

  • Its SRID, or Spatial Reference Identifier. This value identifies the geometry's associated Spatial Reference System that describes the coordinate space in which the geometry object is defined.

    In MySQL, the SRID value is an integer associated with the geometry value. All calculations are done assuming Euclidean (planar) geometry. The maximum usable SRID value is 232−1. If a larger value is given, only the lower 32 bits are used.

  • Its coordinates in its Spatial Reference System, represented as double-precision (8-byte) numbers. All nonempty geometries include at least one pair of (X,Y) coordinates. Empty geometries contain no coordinates.

    Coordinates are related to the SRID. For example, in different coordinate systems, the distance between two objects may differ even when objects have the same coordinates, because the distance on the planar coordinate system and the distance on the geocentric system (coordinates on the Earth's surface) are different things.

  • Its interior, boundary, and exterior.

    Every geometry occupies some position in space. The exterior of a geometry is all space not occupied by the geometry. The interior is the space occupied by the geometry. The boundary is the interface between the geometry's interior and exterior.

  • Its MBR (minimum bounding rectangle), or envelope. This is the bounding geometry, formed by the minimum and maximum (X,Y) coordinates:

    ((MINX MINY, MAXX MINY, MAXX MAXY, MINX MAXY, MINX MINY))
    
  • Whether the value is simple or nonsimple. Geometry values of types (LineString, MultiPoint, MultiLineString) are either simple or nonsimple. Each type determines its own assertions for being simple or nonsimple.

  • Whether the value is closed or not closed. Geometry values of types (LineString, MultiString) are either closed or not closed. Each type determines its own assertions for being closed or not closed.

  • Whether the value is empty or nonempty A geometry is empty if it does not have any points. Exterior, interior, and boundary of an empty geometry are not defined (that is, they are represented by a NULL value). An empty geometry is defined to be always simple and has an area of 0.

  • Its dimension. A geometry can have a dimension of −1, 0, 1, or 2:

    • −1 for an empty geometry.

    • 0 for a geometry with no length and no area.

    • 1 for a geometry with nonzero length and zero area.

    • 2 for a geometry with nonzero area.

    Point objects have a dimension of zero. LineString objects have a dimension of 1. Polygon objects have a dimension of 2. The dimensions of MultiPoint, MultiLineString, and MultiPolygon objects are the same as the dimensions of the elements they consist of.

11.5.2.3 Point Class

A Point is a geometry that represents a single location in coordinate space.

Point Examples

  • Imagine a large-scale map of the world with many cities. A Point object could represent each city.

  • On a city map, a Point object could represent a bus stop.

Point Properties

  • X-coordinate value.

  • Y-coordinate value.

  • Point is defined as a zero-dimensional geometry.

  • The boundary of a Point is the empty set.

11.5.2.4 Curve Class

A Curve is a one-dimensional geometry, usually represented by a sequence of points. Particular subclasses of Curve define the type of interpolation between points. Curve is a noninstantiable class.

Curve Properties

  • A Curve has the coordinates of its points.

  • A Curve is defined as a one-dimensional geometry.

  • A Curve is simple if it does not pass through the same point twice.

  • A Curve is closed if its start point is equal to its endpoint.

  • The boundary of a closed Curve is empty.

  • The boundary of a nonclosed Curve consists of its two endpoints.

  • A Curve that is simple and closed is a LinearRing.

11.5.2.5 LineString Class

A LineString is a Curve with linear interpolation between points.

LineString Examples

  • On a world map, LineString objects could represent rivers.

  • In a city map, LineString objects could represent streets.

LineString Properties

  • A LineString has coordinates of segments, defined by each consecutive pair of points.

  • A LineString is a Line if it consists of exactly two points.

  • A LineString is a LinearRing if it is both closed and simple.

11.5.2.6 Surface Class

A Surface is a two-dimensional geometry. It is a noninstantiable class. Its only instantiable subclass is Polygon.

Surface Properties

  • A Surface is defined as a two-dimensional geometry.

  • The OpenGIS specification defines a simple Surface as a geometry that consists of a single patch that is associated with a single exterior boundary and zero or more interior boundaries.

  • The boundary of a simple Surface is the set of closed curves corresponding to its exterior and interior boundaries.

11.5.2.7 Polygon Class

A Polygon is a planar Surface representing a multisided geometry. It is defined by a single exterior boundary and zero or more interior boundaries, where each interior boundary defines a hole in the Polygon.

Polygon Examples

  • On a region map, Polygon objects could represent forests, districts, and so on.

Polygon Assertions

  • The boundary of a Polygon consists of a set of LinearRing objects (that is, LineString objects that are both simple and closed) that make up its exterior and interior boundaries.

  • A Polygon has no rings that cross. The rings in the boundary of a Polygon may intersect at a Point, but only as a tangent.

  • A Polygon has no lines, spikes, or punctures.

  • A Polygon has an interior that is a connected point set.

  • A Polygon may have holes. The exterior of a Polygon with holes is not connected. Each hole defines a connected component of the exterior.

The preceding assertions make a Polygon a simple geometry.

11.5.2.8 GeometryCollection Class

A GeometryCollection is a geometry that is a collection of one or more geometries of any class.

All the elements in a GeometryCollection must be in the same Spatial Reference System (that is, in the same coordinate system). There are no other constraints on the elements of a GeometryCollection, although the subclasses of GeometryCollection described in the following sections may restrict membership. Restrictions may be based on:

  • Element type (for example, a MultiPoint may contain only Point elements)

  • Dimension

  • Constraints on the degree of spatial overlap between elements

11.5.2.9 MultiPoint Class

A MultiPoint is a geometry collection composed of Point elements. The points are not connected or ordered in any way.

MultiPoint Examples

  • On a world map, a MultiPoint could represent a chain of small islands.

  • On a city map, a MultiPoint could represent the outlets for a ticket office.

MultiPoint Properties

  • A MultiPoint is a zero-dimensional geometry.

  • A MultiPoint is simple if no two of its Point values are equal (have identical coordinate values).

  • The boundary of a MultiPoint is the empty set.

11.5.2.10 MultiCurve Class

A MultiCurve is a geometry collection composed of Curve elements. MultiCurve is a noninstantiable class.

MultiCurve Properties

  • A MultiCurve is a one-dimensional geometry.

  • A MultiCurve is simple if and only if all of its elements are simple; the only intersections between any two elements occur at points that are on the boundaries of both elements.

  • A MultiCurve boundary is obtained by applying the mod 2 union rule (also known as the odd-even rule): A point is in the boundary of a MultiCurve if it is in the boundaries of an odd number of MultiCurve elements.

  • A MultiCurve is closed if all of its elements are closed.

  • The boundary of a closed MultiCurve is always empty.

11.5.2.11 MultiLineString Class

A MultiLineString is a MultiCurve geometry collection composed of LineString elements.

MultiLineString Examples

  • On a region map, a MultiLineString could represent a river system or a highway system.

11.5.2.12 MultiSurface Class

A MultiSurface is a geometry collection composed of surface elements. MultiSurface is a noninstantiable class. Its only instantiable subclass is MultiPolygon.

MultiSurface Assertions

  • Two MultiSurface surfaces have no interiors that intersect.

  • Two MultiSurface elements have boundaries that intersect at most at a finite number of points.

11.5.2.13 MultiPolygon Class

A MultiPolygon is a MultiSurface object composed of Polygon elements.

MultiPolygon Examples

  • On a region map, a MultiPolygon could represent a system of lakes.

MultiPolygon Assertions

  • A MultiPolygon has no two Polygon elements with interiors that intersect.

  • A MultiPolygon has no two Polygon elements that cross (crossing is also forbidden by the previous assertion), or that touch at an infinite number of points.

  • A MultiPolygon may not have cut lines, spikes, or punctures. A MultiPolygon is a regular, closed point set.

  • A MultiPolygon that has more than one Polygon has an interior that is not connected. The number of connected components of the interior of a MultiPolygon is equal to the number of Polygon values in the MultiPolygon.

MultiPolygon Properties

  • A MultiPolygon is a two-dimensional geometry.

  • A MultiPolygon boundary is a set of closed curves (LineString values) corresponding to the boundaries of its Polygon elements.

  • Each Curve in the boundary of the MultiPolygon is in the boundary of exactly one Polygon element.

  • Every Curve in the boundary of an Polygon element is in the boundary of the MultiPolygon.

11.5.3 Using Spatial Data

This section describes how to create tables that include spatial data type columns, and how to manipulate spatial information.

11.5.3.1 Supported Spatial Data Formats

Two standard spatial data formats are used to represent geometry objects in queries:

  • Well-Known Text (WKT) format

  • Well-Known Binary (WKB) format

Internally, MySQL stores geometry values in a format that is not identical to either WKT or WKB format.

There are functions available to convert between different data formats; see Section 12.15.6, “Geometry Format Conversion Functions”.

11.5.3.1.1 Well-Known Text (WKT) Format

The Well-Known Text (WKT) representation of geometry values is designed for exchanging geometry data in ASCII form. The OpenGIS specification provides a Backus-Naur grammar that specifies the formal production rules for writing WKT values (see Section 11.5, “Extensions for Spatial Data”).

Examples of WKT representations of geometry objects:

  • A Point:

    POINT(15 20)
    

    The point coordinates are specified with no separating comma. This differs from the syntax for the SQL Point() function, which requires a comma between the coordinates. Take care to use the syntax appropriate to the context of a given spatial operation. For example, the following statements both extract the X-coordinate from a Point object. The first produces the object directly using the Point() function. The second uses a WKT representation converted to a Point with GeomFromText().

    mysql> SELECT X(Point(15, 20));
    +------------------+
    | X(POINT(15, 20)) |
    +------------------+
    |               15 |
    +------------------+
    
    mysql> SELECT X(GeomFromText('POINT(15 20)'));
    +---------------------------------+
    | X(GeomFromText('POINT(15 20)')) |
    +---------------------------------+
    |                              15 |
    +---------------------------------+
    
  • A LineString with four points:

    LINESTRING(0 0, 10 10, 20 25, 50 60)
    

    The point coordinate pairs are separated by commas.

  • A Polygon with one exterior ring and one interior ring:

    POLYGON((0 0,10 0,10 10,0 10,0 0),(5 5,7 5,7 7,5 7, 5 5))
    
  • A MultiPoint with three Point values:

    MULTIPOINT(0 0, 20 20, 60 60)
    
  • A MultiLineString with two LineString values:

    MULTILINESTRING((10 10, 20 20), (15 15, 30 15))
    
  • A MultiPolygon with two Polygon values:

    MULTIPOLYGON(((0 0,10 0,10 10,0 10,0 0)),((5 5,7 5,7 7,5 7, 5 5)))
    
  • A GeometryCollection consisting of two Point values and one LineString:

    GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(10 10), POINT(30 30), LINESTRING(15 15, 20 20))
    
11.5.3.1.2 Well-Known Binary (WKB) Format

The Well-Known Binary (WKB) representation of geometric values is used for exchanging geometry data as binary streams represented by BLOB values containing geometric WKB information. This format is defined by the OpenGIS specification (see Section 11.5, “Extensions for Spatial Data”). It is also defined in the ISO SQL/MM Part 3: Spatial standard.

WKB uses 1-byte unsigned integers, 4-byte unsigned integers, and 8-byte double-precision numbers (IEEE 754 format). A byte is eight bits.

For example, a WKB value that corresponds to POINT(1 1) consists of this sequence of 21 bytes, each represented by two hex digits:

0101000000000000000000F03F000000000000F03F

The sequence consists of these components:

Byte order:   01
WKB type:     01000000
X coordinate: 000000000000F03F
Y coordinate: 000000000000F03F

Component representation is as follows:

  • The byte order is either 1 or 0 to indicate little-endian or big-endian storage. The little-endian and big-endian byte orders are also known as Network Data Representation (NDR) and External Data Representation (XDR), respectively.

  • The WKB type is a code that indicates the geometry type. Values from 1 through 7 indicate Point, LineString, Polygon, MultiPoint, MultiLineString, MultiPolygon, and GeometryCollection.

  • A Point value has X and Y coordinates, each represented as a double-precision value.

WKB values for more complex geometry values have more complex data structures, as detailed in the OpenGIS specification.

11.5.3.2 Creating Spatial Columns

MySQL provides a standard way of creating spatial columns for geometry types, for example, with CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE. Spatial columns are supported for MyISAM, InnoDB, NDB, and ARCHIVE tables. See also the notes about spatial indexes under Section 11.5.3.6, “Creating Spatial Indexes”.

  • Use the CREATE TABLE statement to create a table with a spatial column:

    CREATE TABLE geom (g GEOMETRY);
    
  • Use the ALTER TABLE statement to add or drop a spatial column to or from an existing table:

    ALTER TABLE geom ADD pt POINT;
    ALTER TABLE geom DROP pt;
    

11.5.3.3 Populating Spatial Columns

After you have created spatial columns, you can populate them with spatial data.

Values should be stored in internal geometry format, but you can convert them to that format from either Well-Known Text (WKT) or Well-Known Binary (WKB) format. The following examples demonstrate how to insert geometry values into a table by converting WKT values to internal geometry format:

  • Perform the conversion directly in the INSERT statement:

    INSERT INTO geom VALUES (GeomFromText('POINT(1 1)'));
    
    SET @g = 'POINT(1 1)';
    INSERT INTO geom VALUES (GeomFromText(@g));
    
  • Perform the conversion prior to the INSERT:

    SET @g = GeomFromText('POINT(1 1)');
    INSERT INTO geom VALUES (@g);
    

The following examples insert more complex geometries into the table:

SET @g = 'LINESTRING(0 0,1 1,2 2)';
INSERT INTO geom VALUES (GeomFromText(@g));

SET @g = 'POLYGON((0 0,10 0,10 10,0 10,0 0),(5 5,7 5,7 7,5 7, 5 5))';
INSERT INTO geom VALUES (GeomFromText(@g));

SET @g =
'GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(1 1),LINESTRING(0 0,1 1,2 2,3 3,4 4))';
INSERT INTO geom VALUES (GeomFromText(@g));

The preceding examples use GeomFromText() to create geometry values. You can also use type-specific functions:

SET @g = 'POINT(1 1)';
INSERT INTO geom VALUES (PointFromText(@g));

SET @g = 'LINESTRING(0 0,1 1,2 2)';
INSERT INTO geom VALUES (LineStringFromText(@g));

SET @g = 'POLYGON((0 0,10 0,10 10,0 10,0 0),(5 5,7 5,7 7,5 7, 5 5))';
INSERT INTO geom VALUES (PolygonFromText(@g));

SET @g =
'GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(1 1),LINESTRING(0 0,1 1,2 2,3 3,4 4))';
INSERT INTO geom VALUES (GeomCollFromText(@g));

A client application program that wants to use WKB representations of geometry values is responsible for sending correctly formed WKB in queries to the server. There are several ways to satisfy this requirement. For example:

  • Inserting a POINT(1 1) value with hex literal syntax:

    mysql> INSERT INTO geom VALUES
        -> (GeomFromWKB(0x0101000000000000000000F03F000000000000F03F));
    
  • An ODBC application can send a WKB representation, binding it to a placeholder using an argument of BLOB type:

    INSERT INTO geom VALUES (GeomFromWKB(?))
    

    Other programming interfaces may support a similar placeholder mechanism.

  • In a C program, you can escape a binary value using mysql_real_escape_string() and include the result in a query string that is sent to the server. See Section 23.8.7.53, “mysql_real_escape_string()”.

11.5.3.4 Fetching Spatial Data

Geometry values stored in a table can be fetched in internal format. You can also convert them to WKT or WKB format.

  • Fetching spatial data in internal format:

    Fetching geometry values using internal format can be useful in table-to-table transfers:

    CREATE TABLE geom2 (g GEOMETRY) SELECT g FROM geom;
    
  • Fetching spatial data in WKT format:

    The AsText() function converts a geometry from internal format to a WKT string.

    SELECT AsText(g) FROM geom;
    
  • Fetching spatial data in WKB format:

    The AsBinary() function converts a geometry from internal format to a BLOB containing the WKB value.

    SELECT AsBinary(g) FROM geom;
    

11.5.3.5 Optimizing Spatial Analysis

For MyISAM tables, search operations in columns containing spatial data can be optimized using SPATIAL indexes. The most typical operations are:

  • Point queries that search for all objects that contain a given point

  • Region queries that search for all objects that overlap a given region

MySQL uses R-Trees with quadratic splitting for SPATIAL indexes on spatial columns. A SPATIAL index is built using the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR) of a geometry. For most geometries, the MBR is a minimum rectangle that surrounds the geometries. For a horizontal or a vertical linestring, the MBR is a rectangle degenerated into the linestring. For a point, the MBR is a rectangle degenerated into the point.

It is also possible to create normal indexes on spatial columns. In a non-SPATIAL index, you must declare a prefix for any spatial column except for POINT columns.

MyISAM supports both SPATIAL and non-SPATIAL indexes. Other storage engines support non-SPATIAL indexes, as described in Section 13.1.13, “CREATE INDEX Syntax”.

11.5.3.6 Creating Spatial Indexes

For MyISAM tables, MySQL can create spatial indexes using syntax similar to that for creating regular indexes, but using the SPATIAL keyword. Columns in spatial indexes must be declared NOT NULL. The following examples demonstrate how to create spatial indexes:

  • With CREATE TABLE:

    CREATE TABLE geom (g GEOMETRY NOT NULL, SPATIAL INDEX(g)) ENGINE=MyISAM;
    
  • With ALTER TABLE:

    ALTER TABLE geom ADD SPATIAL INDEX(g);
    
  • With CREATE INDEX:

    CREATE SPATIAL INDEX sp_index ON geom (g);
    

SPATIAL INDEX creates an R-tree index. For storage engines that support nonspatial indexing of spatial columns, the engine creates a B-tree index. A B-tree index on spatial values is useful for exact-value lookups, but not for range scans.

For more information on indexing spatial columns, see Section 13.1.13, “CREATE INDEX Syntax”.

To drop spatial indexes, use ALTER TABLE or DROP INDEX:

Example: Suppose that a table geom contains more than 32,000 geometries, which are stored in the column g of type GEOMETRY. The table also has an AUTO_INCREMENT column fid for storing object ID values.

mysql> DESCRIBE geom;
+-------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type     | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| fid   | int(11)  |      | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| g     | geometry |      |     |         |                |
+-------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT COUNT(*) FROM geom;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
|    32376 |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

To add a spatial index on the column g, use this statement:

mysql> ALTER TABLE geom ADD SPATIAL INDEX(g) ENGINE=MyISAM;
Query OK, 32376 rows affected (4.05 sec)
Records: 32376  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

11.5.3.7 Using Spatial Indexes

The optimizer investigates whether available spatial indexes can be involved in the search for queries that use a function such as MBRContains() or MBRWithin() in the WHERE clause. The following query finds all objects that are in the given rectangle:

mysql> SET @poly =
    -> 'Polygon((30000 15000,
                 31000 15000,
                 31000 16000,
                 30000 16000,
                 30000 15000))';
mysql> SELECT fid,AsText(g) FROM geom WHERE
    -> MBRContains(GeomFromText(@poly),g);
+-----+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| fid | AsText(g)                                                     |
+-----+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|  21 | LINESTRING(30350.4 15828.8,30350.6 15845,30333.8 15845,30 ... |
|  22 | LINESTRING(30350.6 15871.4,30350.6 15887.8,30334 15887.8, ... |
|  23 | LINESTRING(30350.6 15914.2,30350.6 15930.4,30334 15930.4, ... |
|  24 | LINESTRING(30290.2 15823,30290.2 15839.4,30273.4 15839.4, ... |
|  25 | LINESTRING(30291.4 15866.2,30291.6 15882.4,30274.8 15882. ... |
|  26 | LINESTRING(30291.6 15918.2,30291.6 15934.4,30275 15934.4, ... |
| 249 | LINESTRING(30337.8 15938.6,30337.8 15946.8,30320.4 15946. ... |
|   1 | LINESTRING(30250.4 15129.2,30248.8 15138.4,30238.2 15136. ... |
|   2 | LINESTRING(30220.2 15122.8,30217.2 15137.8,30207.6 15136, ... |
|   3 | LINESTRING(30179 15114.4,30176.6 15129.4,30167 15128,3016 ... |
|   4 | LINESTRING(30155.2 15121.4,30140.4 15118.6,30142 15109,30 ... |
|   5 | LINESTRING(30192.4 15085,30177.6 15082.2,30179.2 15072.4, ... |
|   6 | LINESTRING(30244 15087,30229 15086.2,30229.4 15076.4,3024 ... |
|   7 | LINESTRING(30200.6 15059.4,30185.6 15058.6,30186 15048.8, ... |
|  10 | LINESTRING(30179.6 15017.8,30181 15002.8,30190.8 15003.6, ... |
|  11 | LINESTRING(30154.2 15000.4,30168.6 15004.8,30166 15014.2, ... |
|  13 | LINESTRING(30105 15065.8,30108.4 15050.8,30118 15053,3011 ... |
| 154 | LINESTRING(30276.2 15143.8,30261.4 15141,30263 15131.4,30 ... |
| 155 | LINESTRING(30269.8 15084,30269.4 15093.4,30258.6 15093,30 ... |
| 157 | LINESTRING(30128.2 15011,30113.2 15010.2,30113.6 15000.4, ... |
+-----+---------------------------------------------------------------+
20 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Use EXPLAIN to check the way this query is executed:

mysql> SET @poly =
    -> 'Polygon((30000 15000,
                 31000 15000,
                 31000 16000,
                 30000 16000,
                 30000 15000))';
mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT fid,AsText(g) FROM geom WHERE
    -> MBRContains(GeomFromText(@poly),g)\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: SIMPLE
        table: geom
         type: range
possible_keys: g
          key: g
      key_len: 32
          ref: NULL
         rows: 50
        Extra: Using where
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Check what would happen without a spatial index:

mysql> SET @poly =
    -> 'Polygon((30000 15000,
                 31000 15000,
                 31000 16000,
                 30000 16000,
                 30000 15000))';
mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT fid,AsText(g) FROM g IGNORE INDEX (g) WHERE
    -> MBRContains(GeomFromText(@poly),g)\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: SIMPLE
        table: geom
         type: ALL
possible_keys: NULL
          key: NULL
      key_len: NULL
          ref: NULL
         rows: 32376
        Extra: Using where
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Executing the SELECT statement without the spatial index yields the same result but causes the execution time to rise from 0.00 seconds to 0.46 seconds:

mysql> SET @poly =
    -> 'Polygon((30000 15000,
                 31000 15000,
                 31000 16000,
                 30000 16000,
                 30000 15000))';
mysql> SELECT fid,AsText(g) FROM geom IGNORE INDEX (g) WHERE
    -> MBRContains(GeomFromText(@poly),g);
+-----+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| fid | AsText(g)                                                     |
+-----+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|   1 | LINESTRING(30250.4 15129.2,30248.8 15138.4,30238.2 15136. ... |
|   2 | LINESTRING(30220.2 15122.8,30217.2 15137.8,30207.6 15136, ... |
|   3 | LINESTRING(30179 15114.4,30176.6 15129.4,30167 15128,3016 ... |
|   4 | LINESTRING(30155.2 15121.4,30140.4 15118.6,30142 15109,30 ... |
|   5 | LINESTRING(30192.4 15085,30177.6 15082.2,30179.2 15072.4, ... |
|   6 | LINESTRING(30244 15087,30229 15086.2,30229.4 15076.4,3024 ... |
|   7 | LINESTRING(30200.6 15059.4,30185.6 15058.6,30186 15048.8, ... |
|  10 | LINESTRING(30179.6 15017.8,30181 15002.8,30190.8 15003.6, ... |
|  11 | LINESTRING(30154.2 15000.4,30168.6 15004.8,30166 15014.2, ... |
|  13 | LINESTRING(30105 15065.8,30108.4 15050.8,30118 15053,3011 ... |
|  21 | LINESTRING(30350.4 15828.8,30350.6 15845,30333.8 15845,30 ... |
|  22 | LINESTRING(30350.6 15871.4,30350.6 15887.8,30334 15887.8, ... |
|  23 | LINESTRING(30350.6 15914.2,30350.6 15930.4,30334 15930.4, ... |
|  24 | LINESTRING(30290.2 15823,30290.2 15839.4,30273.4 15839.4, ... |
|  25 | LINESTRING(30291.4 15866.2,30291.6 15882.4,30274.8 15882. ... |
|  26 | LINESTRING(30291.6 15918.2,30291.6 15934.4,30275 15934.4, ... |
| 154 | LINESTRING(30276.2 15143.8,30261.4 15141,30263 15131.4,30 ... |
| 155 | LINESTRING(30269.8 15084,30269.4 15093.4,30258.6 15093,30 ... |
| 157 | LINESTRING(30128.2 15011,30113.2 15010.2,30113.6 15000.4, ... |
| 249 | LINESTRING(30337.8 15938.6,30337.8 15946.8,30320.4 15946. ... |
+-----+---------------------------------------------------------------+
20 rows in set (0.46 sec)

11.6 Data Type Default Values

The DEFAULT value clause in a data type specification indicates a default value for a column. With one exception, the default value must be a constant; it cannot be a function or an expression. This means, for example, that you cannot set the default for a date column to be the value of a function such as NOW() or CURRENT_DATE. The exception is that you can specify CURRENT_TIMESTAMP as the default for a TIMESTAMP column. See Section 11.3.5, “Automatic Initialization and Updating for TIMESTAMP”.

BLOB and TEXT columns cannot be assigned a default value.

If a column definition includes no explicit DEFAULT value, MySQL determines the default value as follows:

If the column can take NULL as a value, the column is defined with an explicit DEFAULT NULL clause.

If the column cannot take NULL as the value, MySQL defines the column with no explicit DEFAULT clause. Exception: If the column is defined as part of a PRIMARY KEY but not explicitly as NOT NULL, MySQL creates it as a NOT NULL column (because PRIMARY KEY columns must be NOT NULL), but also assigns it a DEFAULT clause using the implicit default value. To prevent this, include an explicit NOT NULL in the definition of any PRIMARY KEY column.

For data entry into a NOT NULL column that has no explicit DEFAULT clause, if an INSERT or REPLACE statement includes no value for the column, or an UPDATE statement sets the column to NULL, MySQL handles the column according to the SQL mode in effect at the time:

  • If strict SQL mode is enabled, an error occurs for transactional tables and the statement is rolled back. For nontransactional tables, an error occurs, but if this happens for the second or subsequent row of a multiple-row statement, the preceding rows will have been inserted.

  • If strict mode is not enabled, MySQL sets the column to the implicit default value for the column data type.

Suppose that a table t is defined as follows:

CREATE TABLE t (i INT NOT NULL);

In this case, i has no explicit default, so in strict mode each of the following statements produce an error and no row is inserted. When not using strict mode, only the third statement produces an error; the implicit default is inserted for the first two statements, but the third fails because DEFAULT(i) cannot produce a value:

INSERT INTO t VALUES();
INSERT INTO t VALUES(DEFAULT);
INSERT INTO t VALUES(DEFAULT(i));

See Section 5.1.7, “Server SQL Modes”.

For a given table, you can use the SHOW CREATE TABLE statement to see which columns have an explicit DEFAULT clause.

Implicit defaults are defined as follows:

  • For numeric types, the default is 0, with the exception that for integer or floating-point types declared with the AUTO_INCREMENT attribute, the default is the next value in the sequence.

  • For date and time types other than TIMESTAMP, the default is the appropriate zero value for the type. For the first TIMESTAMP column in a table, the default value is the current date and time. See Section 11.3, “Date and Time Types”.

  • For string types other than ENUM, the default value is the empty string. For ENUM, the default is the first enumeration value.

SERIAL DEFAULT VALUE in the definition of an integer column is an alias for NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT UNIQUE.

11.7 Data Type Storage Requirements

The storage requirements for data vary, according to the storage engine being used for the table in question. Different storage engines use different methods for recording the raw data and different data types. In addition, some engines may compress the information in a given row, either on a column or entire row basis, making calculation of the storage requirements for a given table or column structure.

However, all storage engines must communicate and exchange information on a given row within a table using the same structure, and this information is consistent, irrespective of the storage engine used to write the information to disk.

This sections includes some guideliness and information for the storage requirements for each data type supported by MySQL, including details for the internal format and the sizes used by storage engines that used a fixed size representation for different types. Information is listed by category or storage engine.

The internal representation of a table has a maximum row size of 65,535 bytes, even if the storage engine is capable of supporting larger rows. This figure excludes BLOB or TEXT columns, which contribute only 9 to 12 bytes toward this size. For BLOB and TEXT data, the information is stored internally in a different area of memory than the row buffer. Different storage engines handle the allocation and storage of this data in different ways, according to the method they use for handling the corresponding types. For more information, see Chapter 15, Alternative Storage Engines, and Section D.10.4, “Limits on Table Column Count and Row Size”.

Storage Requirements for InnoDB Tables

See Section 14.5.6.6, “Physical Row Structure” for information about storage requirements for InnoDB tables.

Storage Requirements for NDBCLUSTER Tables

Important

For tables using the NDBCLUSTER storage engine, there is the factor of 4-byte alignment to be taken into account when calculating storage requirements. This means that all NDB data storage is done in multiples of 4 bytes. Thus, a column value that would take 15 bytes in a table using a storage engine other than NDB requires 16 bytes in an NDB table. This requirement applies in addition to any other considerations that are discussed in this section. For example, in NDBCLUSTER tables, the TINYINT, SMALLINT, MEDIUMINT, and INTEGER (INT) column types each require 4 bytes storage per record due to the alignment factor.

An exception to this rule is the BIT type, which is not 4-byte aligned. In MySQL Cluster tables, a BIT(M) column takes M bits of storage space. However, if a table definition contains 1 or more BIT columns (up to 32 BIT columns), then NDBCLUSTER reserves 4 bytes (32 bits) per row for these. If a table definition contains more than 32 BIT columns (up to 64 such columns), then NDBCLUSTER reserves 8 bytes (that is, 64 bits) per row.

In addition, while a NULL itself does not require any storage space, NDBCLUSTER reserves 4 bytes per row if the table definition contains any columns defined as NULL, up to 32 NULL columns. (If a MySQL Cluster table is defined with more than 32 NULL columns up to 64 NULL columns, then 8 bytes per row is reserved.)

When calculating storage requirements for MySQL Cluster tables, you must also remember that every table using the NDBCLUSTER storage engine requires a primary key; if no primary key is defined by the user, then a hidden primary key will be created by NDB. This hidden primary key consumes 31-35 bytes per table record.

You may find the ndb_size.pl utility to be useful for estimating NDB storage requirements. This Perl script connects to a current MySQL (non-Cluster) database and creates a report on how much space that database would require if it used the NDBCLUSTER storage engine. See Section 18.4.24, “ndb_size.pl — NDBCLUSTER Size Requirement Estimator”, for more information.

Storage Requirements for Numeric Types

Data TypeStorage Required
TINYINT1 byte
SMALLINT2 bytes
MEDIUMINT3 bytes
INT, INTEGER4 bytes
BIGINT8 bytes
FLOAT(p)4 bytes if 0 <= p <= 24, 8 bytes if 25 <= p <= 53
FLOAT4 bytes
DOUBLE [PRECISION], REAL8 bytes
DECIMAL(M,D), NUMERIC(M,D)Varies; see following discussion
BIT(M)approximately (M+7)/8 bytes

Values for DECIMAL (and NUMERIC) columns are represented using a binary format that packs nine decimal (base 10) digits into four bytes. Storage for the integer and fractional parts of each value are determined separately. Each multiple of nine digits requires four bytes, and the leftover digits require some fraction of four bytes. The storage required for excess digits is given by the following table.

Leftover DigitsNumber of Bytes
00
11
21
32
42
53
63
74
84

Storage Requirements for Date and Time Types

Data TypeStorage Required
DATE3 bytes
TIME3 bytes
DATETIME8 bytes
TIMESTAMP4 bytes
YEAR1 byte

For details about internal representation of temporal values, see MySQL Internals: Important Algorithms and Structures.

Storage Requirements for String Types

In the following table, M represents the declared column length in characters for nonbinary string types and bytes for binary string types. L represents the actual length in bytes of a given string value.

Data TypeStorage Required
CHAR(M)M × w bytes, 0 <= M <= 255, where w is the number of bytes required for the maximum-length character in the character set. See Section 14.5.6.6, “Physical Row Structure” for information about CHAR data type storage requirements for InnoDB tables.
BINARY(M)M bytes, 0 <= M <= 255
VARCHAR(M), VARBINARY(M)L + 1 bytes if column values require 0 − 255 bytes, L + 2 bytes if values may require more than 255 bytes
TINYBLOB, TINYTEXTL + 1 bytes, where L < 28
BLOB, TEXTL + 2 bytes, where L < 216
MEDIUMBLOB, MEDIUMTEXTL + 3 bytes, where L < 224
LONGBLOB, LONGTEXTL + 4 bytes, where L < 232
ENUM('value1','value2',...)1 or 2 bytes, depending on the number of enumeration values (65,535 values maximum)
SET('value1','value2',...)1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 bytes, depending on the number of set members (64 members maximum)

Variable-length string types are stored using a length prefix plus data. The length prefix requires from one to four bytes depending on the data type, and the value of the prefix is L (the byte length of the string). For example, storage for a MEDIUMTEXT value requires L bytes to store the value plus three bytes to store the length of the value.

To calculate the number of bytes used to store a particular CHAR, VARCHAR, or TEXT column value, you must take into account the character set used for that column and whether the value contains multibyte characters. In particular, when using the utf8 (or utf8mb4) Unicode character set, you must keep in mind that not all characters use the same number of bytes and can require up to three (four) bytes per character. For a breakdown of the storage used for different categories of utf8 or utf8mb4 characters, see Section 10.1.10, “Unicode Support”.

VARCHAR, VARBINARY, and the BLOB and TEXT types are variable-length types. For each, the storage requirements depend on these factors:

  • The actual length of the column value

  • The column's maximum possible length

  • The character set used for the column, because some character sets contain multibyte characters

For example, a VARCHAR(255) column can hold a string with a maximum length of 255 characters. Assuming that the column uses the latin1 character set (one byte per character), the actual storage required is the length of the string (L), plus one byte to record the length of the string. For the string 'abcd', L is 4 and the storage requirement is five bytes. If the same column is instead declared to use the ucs2 double-byte character set, the storage requirement is 10 bytes: The length of 'abcd' is eight bytes and the column requires two bytes to store lengths because the maximum length is greater than 255 (up to 510 bytes).

The effective maximum number of bytes that can be stored in a VARCHAR or VARBINARY column is subject to the maximum row size of 65,535 bytes, which is shared among all columns. For a VARCHAR column that stores multibyte characters, the effective maximum number of characters is less. For example, utf8 characters can require up to three bytes per character, so a VARCHAR column that uses the utf8 character set can be declared to be a maximum of 21,844 characters. See Section D.10.4, “Limits on Table Column Count and Row Size”.

The NDBCLUSTER storage engine supports variable-width columns. This means that a VARCHAR column in a MySQL Cluster table requires the same amount of storage as would any other storage engine, with the exception that such values are 4-byte aligned. Thus, the string 'abcd' stored in a VARCHAR(50) column using the latin1 character set requires 8 bytes (rather than 5 bytes for the same column value in a MyISAM table).

TEXT and BLOB columns are implemented differently in the NDB Cluster storage engine, wherein each row in a TEXT column is made up of two separate parts. One of these is of fixed size (256 bytes), and is actually stored in the original table. The other consists of any data in excess of 256 bytes, which is stored in a hidden table. The rows in this second table are always 2,000 bytes long. This means that the size of a TEXT column is 256 if size <= 256 (where size represents the size of the row); otherwise, the size is 256 + size + (2000 − (size − 256) % 2000).

The size of an ENUM object is determined by the number of different enumeration values. One byte is used for enumerations with up to 255 possible values. Two bytes are used for enumerations having between 256 and 65,535 possible values. See Section 11.4.4, “The ENUM Type”.

The size of a SET object is determined by the number of different set members. If the set size is N, the object occupies (N+7)/8 bytes, rounded up to 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 bytes. A SET can have a maximum of 64 members. See Section 11.4.5, “The SET Type”.

11.8 Choosing the Right Type for a Column

For optimum storage, you should try to use the most precise type in all cases. For example, if an integer column is used for values in the range from 1 to 99999, MEDIUMINT UNSIGNED is the best type. Of the types that represent all the required values, this type uses the least amount of storage.

All basic calculations (+, -, *, and /) with DECIMAL columns are done with precision of 65 decimal (base 10) digits. See Section 11.1.1, “Numeric Type Overview”.

If accuracy is not too important or if speed is the highest priority, the DOUBLE type may be good enough. For high precision, you can always convert to a fixed-point type stored in a BIGINT. This enables you to do all calculations with 64-bit integers and then convert results back to floating-point values as necessary.

PROCEDURE ANALYSE can be used to obtain suggestions for optimal column data types. For more information, see Section 8.4.2.4, “Using PROCEDURE ANALYSE”.

11.9 Using Data Types from Other Database Engines

To facilitate the use of code written for SQL implementations from other vendors, MySQL maps data types as shown in the following table. These mappings make it easier to import table definitions from other database systems into MySQL.

Data type mapping occurs at table creation time, after which the original type specifications are discarded. If you create a table with types used by other vendors and then issue a DESCRIBE tbl_name statement, MySQL reports the table structure using the equivalent MySQL types. For example:

mysql> CREATE TABLE t (a BOOL, b FLOAT8, c LONG VARCHAR, d NUMERIC);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> DESCRIBE t;
+-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type          | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| a     | tinyint(1)    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| b     | double        | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| c     | mediumtext    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| d     | decimal(10,0) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
4 rows in set (0.01 sec)