Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn about MySQL data types and how to use them effectively in designing database in MySQL.
A database table contains multiple columns with specific data types such as numeric or string. MySQL provides more data types other than just numeric or string. Each data type in MySQL can be determined by the following characteristics:
The kind of values it represents.
The space that takes up and whether the values are fixed-length or variable-length.
The values of the data type can be indexed or not.
How MySQL compares the values of a specific data type.
Numeric Data Types
You can find all SQL standard numeric types in MySQL including exact number data type and approximate numeric data types including integer, fixed-point and floating point. In addition, MySQL also supports BIT data type for storing bit field values. Numeric types can be signed or unsigned except the BIT type. The following table shows you the summary of numeric types in MySQL: