MySQL database has three (3) main data types: text, numbers and dates/times.
Text Types
| CHAR( ) | A fixed section from 0 to 255 characters long. |
| VARCHAR( ) | A variable section from 0 to 255 characters long. |
| TINYTEXT | A string with a maximum length of 255 characters. |
| TEXT | A string with a maximum length of 65535 characters. |
| BLOB | A string with a maximum length of 65535 characters. |
| MEDIUMTEXT | A string with a maximum length of 16777215 characters. |
| MEDIUMBLOB | A string with a maximum length of 16777215 characters. |
| LONGTEXT | A string with a maximum length of 4294967295 characters. |
| LONGBLOB | A string with a maximum length of 4294967295 characters. |
The ( ) brackets allow you to specify the maximum number of characters that can be used in the column.
BLOB stands for Binary Large OBject, and can be used to store non-text information that is encoded into text.
Number Types
| TINYINT ( ) | -128 to 127 normal | 0 to 255 UNSIGNED |
| SMALLINT( ) | -32768 to 32767 normal | 0 to 65535 UNSIGNED |
| MEDIUMINT( ) | -8388608 to 8388607 normal | 0 to 16777215 UNSIGNED |
| INT( ) | -2147483648 to 2147483647 normal | 0 to 4294967295 UNSIGNED |
| BIGINT( ) | -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807 normal | 0 to 18446744073709551615 UNSIGNED |
| FLOAT | A small number with a floating decimal point. | |
| DOUBLE( , ) | A large number with a floating decimal point. | |
| DECIMAL( , ) | A DOUBLE stored as a string, allowing for a fixed decimal point. | |
Date/Time Types
| DATE | YYYY-MM-DD |
| DATETIME | YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS |
| TIMESTAMP | YYYYMMDDHHMMSS |
| TIME | HH:MM:SS |
| YEAR | YYYY |
Date/Time fields will only accept a valid date or time.
