creating tables - varchar and char - odd thing happening

[mfischer]

Hello,

I used the book PHP fast & easy book which had some PHP code for creating

tables. THe code worked but mysql seems to change (with no pattern that I can understand varchar to char and visa versa). I have printed out the sql create statement prior to executing it that is built by the PHP code

 

for instance : CREATE TABLE teacher (id char (5) not null,name varchar (40) not null,email varchar (30) null,level varchar (5) null, UNIQUE id(id))

 

but when I look at the table using the explain command

all the fields are defined as varchar. The size of the field and other

options I selected are correct.

 

 

 

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Maureen

[yrrahxob]

I wouldn\'t worry about it. Mysql automatically converts char to vchar if the field is over 3 or 4 bytes long. This is to save disk space for tables having an extremely large number of rows. Imagine a field that took up 500 bytes but only held 25 bytes of data but the table had 10 million records. lots of wasted space there.