String Types

TiDB supports all the MySQL string types, including CHAR, VARCHAR, BINARY, VARBINARY, BLOB, TEXT, ENUM, and SET. For more information, see String Types in MySQL.

Supported types

CHAR type

CHAR is a fixed length string. Values stored as CHAR are right-padded with spaces to the specified length. M represents the column-length in characters (not bytes). The range of M is 0 to 255:

[NATIONAL] CHAR[(M)] [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

VARCHAR type

VARCHAR is a string of variable-length. M represents the maximum column length in characters (not bytes). The range of M is 0 to 65,535, but the effective maximum-length will be shorter since the total size of all columns must not exceed 65,535 bytes (the maximum row-size in TIDB).

[NATIONAL] VARCHAR(M) [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

TINYTEXT type

TINYTEXT is a string of variable-length. The length (M) is optional, with a maximum length of 255 characters:

TINYTEXT[(M)] [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

TEXT type

TEXT is a string of variable-length. M represents the maximum column length ranging from 0 to 65,535. The effective maximum-length will be shorter since the total size of all columns must not exceed 65,535 bytes (the maximum row-size in TIDB):

TEXT[(M)] [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

MEDIUMTEXT type

MEDIUMTEXT is a string of variable-length. M represents the maximum column length ranging from 0 to 16,777,215, but the effective maximum-length will be shorter since the total size of all columns must not exceed 65,535 bytes (the maximum row-size in TIDB):

MEDIUMTEXT [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

LONGTEXT type

LONGTEXT is a string of variable-length. M represents the maximum column length ranging from 0 to 4,294,967,295, but the effective maximum-length will be shorter since the total size of all columns must not exceed 65,535 bytes (the maximum row-size in TIDB):

LONGTEXT [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

BINARY type

The BINARY type is similar to the CHAR type, but stores binary byte strings rather than nonbinary character strings. M represents the maximum length in bytes:

BINARY(M)

VARBINARY type

The VARBINARY type is similar to the VARCHAR type, but stores binary byte strings rather than nonbinary character strings. M represents the maximum length, ranging from 0 to 65,535 bytes:

VARBINARY(M)

TINYBLOB type

The TINYBLOB type is similar to the TINYTEXT type, but stores binary byte strings rather than nonbinary character strings:

TINYBLOB

BLOB type

The BLOB type is similar to the TEXT type, but stores binary byte strings rather than nonbinary character strings. M represents the maximum column length ranging from 0 to 65,535 bytes. The effective maximum-length will be shorter since the total size of all columns must not exceed 65,535 bytes (the maximum row-size in TIDB):

BLOB[(M)]

MEDIUMBLOB type

The MEDIUMBLOB type is similar to the TEXT type, but stores binary byte strings rather than nonbinary character strings. The maximum length is 16,777,215 bytes, but the effective maximum-length will be shorter since the total size of all columns must not exceed 65,535 bytes (the maximum row-size in TIDB):

MEDIUMBLOB

LONGBLOB type

The LONGBLOB type is similar to the LONGTEXT type, but stores binary byte strings rather than nonbinary character strings. The maximum length is 4,294,967,295 bytes, but the effective maximum-length will be shorter since the total size of all columns must not exceed 65,535 bytes (the maximum row-size in TIDB):

LONGBLOB

ENUM type

An ENUM is a string object with a value chosen from a list of permitted values that are enumerated explicitly in the column specification when the table is created. The syntax is:

ENUM('value1','value2',...) [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

# For example:
ENUM('apple', 'orange', 'pear')

The value of the ENUM data type is stored as numbers. Each value is converted to a number according the definition order. In the previous example, each string is mapped to a number:

For more information, see the ENUM type in MySQL.

SET type

A SET is a string object that can have zero or more values, each of which must be chosen from a list of permitted values specified when the table is created. The syntax is:

SET('value1','value2',...) [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]

# For example:
SET('1', '2') NOT NULL

In the example, any of the following values can be valid:

''
'1'
'2'
'1,2'

In TiDB, the values of the SET type is internally converted to Int64. The existence of each element is represented using a binary: 0 or 1. For a column specified as SET('a','b','c','d'), the members have the following decimal and binary values.

In this case, for an element of ('a', 'c'), it is 0101 in binary.

For more information, see the SET type in MySQL.