Table of Contents [+/-]
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:
For integer types,
Mindicates the maximum display width. For floating-point and fixed-point types,
Mis the total number of digits that can be stored (the precision). For string types,
Mis the maximum length. The maximum permissible value of
Mdepends on the data type.
fspapplies to the
TIMESTAMPtypes and represents fractional seconds precision; that is, the number of digits following the decimal point for fractional parts of seconds. The
fspvalue, if given, must be in the range 0 to 6. A value of 0 signifies that there is no fractional part. If omitted, the default precision is 0. (This differs from the standard SQL default of 6, for compatibility with previous MySQL versions.)
Square brackets (
]) indicate optional parts of type definitions.