data type questions

[Michael Widenius]

Hi!

Please post general developer questions to internals@stripped;
This way more people than just I can help you with your problems...

>>>>> "Mark" == Mark J Lilback <mark@stripped> writes:

Mark> Hey! I'm working on an update to my application and am running into a 
Mark> few things I can't find any documentation on.

Mark> What is the difference between FIELD_TYPE_DATE and FIELD_TYPE_NEWDATE?

We changed in 3.32 the format of how we stored dates

Both date types behaves identically from the user point of view.
FIELD_TYPE_DATE is stored in 4 bytes while FIELD_TYPE_NEWDATE is
stored in 3 bytes.  When you do a new table or an ALTER TABLE, all
dates are always stored as FIELD_DATE_NEWDATE

Mark> How about FIELD_TYPE_CHAR, FIELD_TYPE_STRING, and 
Mark> FIELD_TYPE_VAR_STRING? I've been using VAR_STRING for varchars, but 
Mark> what's the difference between char and string?

FIELD_TYPE_CHAR is a number stored as 1 byte int.
(We renamed this to FIELD_TYPE_TINY in 3.23 but we still keep the old
define around for compatibly reasons)

FIELD_TYPE_STRING is a fixed length string (CHAR(X))
FIELD_TYPE_VARCHAR is a variable length string (VARCHAR(X))

From the applications point of view there is no difference between the
above types;  It only gives a hint about how the columns are stored in
the database.

Regards,
Monty