SQLyog DataType Problem

[pporter]

I am using SQLyog Version 3.63 and I've discovered that everytime I set a column's datatype to “char” SQLyog changes it to “varchar”. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for any input.

Paul

[Ritesh]

Excerpts from the MySQL Reference Manual

Code:

6.5.3.1 Silent Column Specification Changes

If any column in a table has a variable length, the entire row is variable-length as a result. Therefore, if a table contains any variable-length columns (VARCHAR, TEXT, or BLO:cool:, all CHAR columns longer than three characters are changed to VARCHAR columns. This doesn't affect how you use the columns in any way; in MySQL, VARCHAR is just a different way to store characters. MySQL performs this conversion because it saves space and makes table operations faster.

[pporter]

Hu-m-m! that is interesting. I'm using “MySQL” by Paul DuBois to learn MySQL and on page 99 he says: ” If your values don't very much in length, CHAR is a better choice than VARCHAR because the tables with fixed-length rows can be processed more efficiently that tables with variable-length rows. If your values are all the same length, VARCHAR will actuallly use more space due to the extra byte used to record the length of the values.”

Being a contributor to the MySQL Reference Manual I would have thought Paul DuBois would have been aware of this behavior. I wonder why MySQL even bothers to have a CHAR data-type if it can't be used except for fields of 3 bytes or less.

Any way thank you setting me straight.

Paul

[Author]

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