SQL Data Types

Data types are used to represent the nature of the data that can be stored in the
database table. For example, in a particular column of a table, if we want to store
a string type of data then we will have to declare a string data type of this
column.

Data types are mainly classified into three categories for every database:

● String Data types

● Numeric Data types

● Date and time Data types

MySQL String Data Types:

CHAR(Size) It is used to specify a fixed length string that can contain

numbers, letters, and special characters. Its size can be 0 to
255 characters. Default is 1.

VARCHAR(Size) It is used to specify a variable length string that can contain

numbers, letters, and special characters. Its size can be from
0 to 65535 characters.

BINARY(Size) It is equal to CHAR() but stores binary byte strings. Its size
parameter specifies the column length in the bytes. Default is
1.

VARBINARY(Size) It is equal to VARCHAR() but stores binary byte strings. Its

size parameter specifies the maximum column length in
bytes.

TEXT(Size) It holds a string that can contain a maximum length of 255

characters.

TINYTEXT It holds a string with a maximum length of 255 characters.

MEDIUMTEXT It holds a string with a maximum length of 16,777,215.

 LONGTEXT It holds a string with a maximum length of 4,294,967,295
characters.

ENUM(val1, val2, val3,...) It is used when a string object has only one value, chosen from a
list of possible values. It contains 65535 values in an ENUM list.
If you insert a value that is not in the list, a blank value will be
inserted.

SET( val1,val2,val3,....) It is used to specify a string that can have 0 or more values,
chosen from a list of possible values. You can list up to 64
values at one time in a SET list.

BLOB(size) It is used for BLOBs (Binary Large Objects). It can hold up to

65,535 bytes.

MySQL Numeric Data Types:

BIT(Size) It is used for a bit-value type. The number of bits per value
is specified in size. Its size can be 1 to 64. The default
value is 1.

INT(size) It is used for the integer value. Its signed range varies from
-2147483648 to 2147483647 and unsigned range varies
from 0 to 4294967295. The size parameter specifies the
max display width that is 255.

INTEGER(size) It is equal to INT(size).

FLOAT(size, d) It is used to specify a floating point number. Its size

parameter specifies the total number of digits. The
number of digits after the decimal point is specified by the
d parameter.

FLOAT(p) It is used to specify a floating point number. MySQL used

the p parameter to determine whether to use FLOAT or
DOUBLE. If p is between 0 to24, the data type becomes
FLOAT (). If p is from 25 to 53, the data type becomes
DOUBLE().

DOUBLE(size, d) It is a normal size floating point number. Its size parameter

specifies the total number of digits. The number of digits
after the decimal is specified by d parameter.

DECIMAL(size, d) It is used to specify a fixed point number. Its size

 parameter specifies the total number of digits. The
number of digits after the decimal parameter is specified
by d parameter. The maximum value for the size is 65, and
the default value is 10. The maximum value for d is 30,
and the default value is 0.

DEC(size, d) It is equal to DECIMAL(size, d).

BOOL It is used to specify Boolean values true and false. Zero is

considered as false, and nonzero values are considered as
true.

MySQL Date and Time Data Types:

DATE It is used to specify date format YYYY-MM-DD. Its

supported range is from '1000-01-01' to '9999-12-31'.

DATETIME(fsp) It is used to specify date and time combinations. Its

format is YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss. Its supported range is
from '1000-01-01 00:00:00' to 9999-12-31 23:59:59'.

TIMESTAMP(fsp) It is used to specify the timestamp. Its value is stored as

the number of seconds since the Unix epoch('1970-01-01
00:00:00' UTC). Its format is YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss. Its
supported range is from '1970-01-01 00:00:01' UTC to
'2038-01-09 03:14:07' UTC.

TIME(fsp) It is used to specify the time format. Its format is

hh:mm:ss. Its supported range is from '-838:59:59' to
'838:59:59'

YEAR It is used to specify a year in four-digit format. Values

allowed in four digit format from 1901 to 2155, and 0000.
MySQL database engines:

Database engines are MySQL components that can handle SQL operations
like create, read, update data from a database. There are two types of engines
in MySQL: transactional and non-transactional.InnoDB is the default engine
for MySQL 5.5 and above versions. Major DBMS uses an application
programming interface(API) to enable the interaction of users with database
engines. It is very necessary to know about the engines for production
databases and it also impacts future development. To access the list of
available MySQL engines we run SHOW ENGINES; query.

There are 2 types of database engines :

Transactional Databases: In this type, we can roll back the write operations on
the database if they are left incomplete. These operations are known as
transactions. Majorly, modern engines are transactional.

Non-Transactional Databases: Unlike transactional databases, they don’t

provide Rollback/Commit. Instead, we need to manually code to perform the

rollback operations.
TCL (Transaction Control
Language):

Transactions group a set of tasks into a single execution unit. Each transaction begins with a
specific task and ends when all the tasks in the group successfully complete. If any of the tasks
fail, the transaction fails. Therefore, a transaction has only two results: success or failure. You
can explore more about transactions here.

Hence, the following TCL commands are used to control the execution of a transaction:

● BEGIN: It is used at the beginning of a transaction.

● COMMIT: It is used to save the transactions in the database.

● ROLLBACK: It is used to restore the database to that state which was last committed.

● SAVEPOINT: The changes done till savepoint will be unchanged and all the transactions
after savepoint will be rolled back.

DDL (Data Definition Language):

DDL or Data Definition Language actually consists of the SQL commands that can be used to
define the database schema. It simply deals with descriptions of the database schema and is
used to create and modify the structure of database objects in the database. DDL is a set of
SQL commands used to create, modify, and delete database structures but not data. These
commands are normally not used by a general user, who should be accessing the database via
an application.
List of DDL commands:

● CREATE: This command is used to create the database or its objects (like table, index,
function, views, store procedure, and triggers).

● DROP: This command is used to delete objects from the database.

● ALTER: This is used to alter the structure of the database.

● TRUNCATE: This is used to remove all records from a table, including all spaces
allocated for the records are removed.

● COMMENT: This is used to add comments to the data dictionary.

● RENAME: This is used to rename an object existing in the database.

DML(Data Manipulation
Language):

The SQL commands that deal with the manipulation of data present in the database belong to
DML or Data Manipulation Language and this includes most of the SQL statements. It is the
component of the SQL statement that controls access to data and to the database. Basically,
DCL statements are grouped with DML statements.

List of DML commands:

● INSERT: It is used to insert data into a table.
● UPDATE: It is used to update existing data within a table.
● DELETE: It is used to delete records from a database table.
● LOCK: Table control concurrency.
● CALL: Call a PL/SQL or JAVA subprogram.
● EXPLAIN PLAN: It describes the access path to data.