MariaDB Data Types

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn about MariaDB data types and how to use them effectively for designing a table.

Before designing a database in MariaDB, you should consider the available data types so that you can select the most optimal ones for storing data. MariaDB provides you with many data types including:

Numeric data types
String data types
Temporal data types
Spatial data types

Each data type has the following properties:

The value that it can present.
The storage size
The values can be indexed or not.
How values can be compared.

MariaDB numeric data types

MariaDB supports many kinds of numeric types including the exact and approximate numeric data types. The following table shows the summary of numeric types supported by MariaDB:

Numeric Types	Description
`TINYINT`	A very small integer
`SMALLINT`	A small integer
`MEDIUMINT`	A medium-sized integer
`INT`	A standard integer
`BIGINT`	A large integer
`DECIMAL`	A fixed-point number
`FLOAT`	A single-precision floating-point number
`DOUBLE`	A double-precision floating-point number
`BIT`	A bit

MariaDB Boolean data type

MariaDB uses the TINYINT(1) to represent Boolean values. In MariaDB, zero (0) means false and non-zero means true. The BOOLEAN and BOOL are the synonym of TINYINT(1).

MariaDB string data types

MariaDB string types can hold any string data including plain text, binary data, and even contents of files. The following table displays string data types in MariaDB:

String Types	Description
`CHAR`	A fixed-length nonbinary (character) string
`VARCHAR`	A variable-length non-binary string
`BINARY`	A fixed-length binary string
`VARBINARY`	A variable-length binary string
`TINYBLOB`	A very small BLOB (binary large object)
`BLOB`	A small BLOB
`MEDIUMBLOB`	A medium-sized BLOB
`LONGBLOB`	A large BLOB
`TINYTEXT`	A very small non-binary string
`TEXT`	A small non-binary string
`MEDIUMTEXT`	A medium-sized non-binary string
`LONGTEXT`	A large non-binary string
`ENUM`	An enumeration
`SET`	A set

MariaDB temporal types

MySQL temporal types including types that represent a date without time, a time without date, a datetime, a timestamp, and year. This table shows the MariaDB temporal data types:

Temporal Data Types	Description
`DATE`	A date value in `CCYY-MM-DD` format
`TIME`	A time value in `hh:mm:ss` format
`DATETIME`	A date and time value in`CCYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss`format
`TIMESTAMP`	A timestamp value in `CCYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss` format
`YEAR`	A year value in `CCYY` or `YY` format

MariaDB spatial data types

MariaDB supports many spatial data types that contain various kinds of geographical values

Spatial Data Types	Description
`GEOMETRY`	A spatial value of any type
`POINT`	A point (a pair of X-Y coordinates)
`LINESTRING`	A curve (one or more `POINT` values)
`POLYGON`	A polygon
`GEOMETRYCOLLECTION`	A collection of `GEOMETRY` values
`MULTILINESTRING`	A collection of `LINESTRING`values
`MULTIPOINT`	A collection of `POINT` values
`MULTIPOLYGON`	A collection of `POLYGON`values

In this tutorial, you have learned various MariaDB data types including numeric, string, spatial data types,

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