Data Types
Variables in MySQL stored programs can be assigned any of the data types available to columns in MySQL tables. We previewed most of the data types earlier, in Table 3-1.
All variables in MySQL stored programs are scalars , which is to say variables that store only a single item. There are no equivalents to arrays, records, or structures such as you can find in some other programming languages.
String Data Types
MySQL supports two basic string data types : CHAR and
VARCHAR. CHAR stores fixed-length strings, while
VARCHAR stores variable-length
strings. If a CHAR variable is
assigned a value shorter than its declared length, it will be
blank-padded out to the declared length. This does not occur with
VARCHAR variables.
When used in MySQL tables, the choice of CHAR or VARCHAR can be significant because it can
affect the amount of disk storage needed. However, in stored
programs, the additional memory requirements will be minimal and,
use CHARs and VARCHARs can be used interchangeably in
all expressions, there is little advantage to either data type. We
generally use VARCHARs because
they are capable of storing longer strings.
The CHAR data type can
store a maximum of 255 bytes, and the VARCHAR a maximum of 65,532 bytes.
The ENUM data type
The ENUM data
type is used to store one of a set of permissible values. These
values can be accessed as their string value or as their indexed
position in the set of possibilities. If you attempt to assign a
value into an ENUM that does not ...