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.