There are lot of datatype to be determine when creating tables using MySQL or MariaDB database. There are three primary categories, which is true for almost every database software:
- Text
- Numbers
- Dates and times
Choosing your column types correctly not only dictates what information can be stored and how, but also affects the database's overall performance. Table below lists most of the available types for MySQL, how much space they take up, and a brief description for your information.
MySQL Datatypes | ||
Type | Size | Description |
CHAR[Length] | Length bytes | A fixed-length field from 0 to 255 characters long. |
VARCHAR(Length) | String length + 1 bytes | A fixed-length field from 0 to 255 characters long. |
TINYTEXT | String length + 1 bytes | A string with a maximum length of 255 characters. |
TEXT | String length + 2 bytes | A string with a maximum length of 65,535 characters. |
MEDIUMTEXT | String length + 3 bytes | A string with a maximum length of 16,777,215 characters. |
LONGTEXT | String length + 4 bytes | A string with a maximum length of 4,294,967,295 characters. |
TINYINT[Length] | 1 byte | Range of -128 to 127 or 0 to 255 unsigned. |
SMALLINT[Length] | 2 bytes | Range of -32,768 to 32,767 or 0 to 65535 unsigned. |
MEDIUMINT[Length] | 3 bytes | Range of -8,388,608 to 8,388,607 or 0 to 16,777,215 unsigned. |
INT[Length] | 4 bytes | Range of -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 or 0 to 4,294,967,295 unsigned. |
BIGINT[Length] | 8 bytes | Range of -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 or 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 unsigned. |
FLOAT | 4 bytes | A small number with a floating decimal point. |
DOUBLE[Length, Decimals] | 8 bytes | A large number with a floating decimal point. |
DECIMAL[Length, Decimals] | Length + 1 or Length + 2 bytes | A DOUBLE stored as a string, allowing for a fixed decimal point. |
DATE | 3 bytes | In the format of YYYY-MM-DD. |
DATETIME | 8 bytes | In the format of YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. |
TIMESTAMP | 4 bytes | In the format of YYYYMMDDHHMMSS; acceptable range ends inthe year 2037. |
TIME | 3 bytes | In the format of HH:MM:SS |
ENUM | 1 or 2 bytes | Short for enumeration, which means that each column can haveone of several possible values. |
SET | 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 bytes | Like ENUM except that each column can have more than one ofseveral possible values. |