From: Ben Clewett
Date: July 3 2007 8:09am
Subject: Re: Field size for UTF-8 characters
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/207845
Message-Id: <468A042C.4080407@clewett.org.uk>
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 From my experience with InnoDB,

IF the field is an index, it will use 3 bytes per character.  So 
VARCHAR(50) = 150 bytes, when fully populated.  (+ 1 for the length = 
151 bytes.)

IF the field is not an index, each character will consume between 1 and 
3 chars.  So VARCHAR(50) = 51 -> 151 chars, when fully populated.

Ben

Cathy Murphy wrote:
> I am limiting text to 50 chars in mysql field by varchar(50) ( UTF-8
> enabled)
> but what if the user enters 50 japanese chars, does mysql accomodate it OR
> we have to consider some buffer during design ?
>