what does the value for int(x) represent

[ohitsme]

Hi,

if i make a field with

int(10)

 

what does that mean? 10 bytes?

whats the biggest number int(10) could hold? 2^10? (1024)?

 

thanks a lot

[xtopolis]

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/numeric-types.html

 

Apparently it only affects the display width of the column.

Another extension is supported by MySQL for optionally specifying the display width of integer data types in parentheses following the base keyword for the type (for example, INT(4)). This optional display width may be used by applications to display integer values having a width less than the width specified for the column by left-padding them with spaces. (That is, this width is present in the metadata returned with result sets. Whether it is used or not is up to the application.)

For example, for a column declared as INT(5) ZEROFILL, a value of 4 is retrieved as 00004.

 

I always default to INT(11) for my int types, didn't even know what I was doing lol.

[corbin]

Yeah I came across that page a while back, and thought the same thing you did.  "Wait, it doesn't even matter?  Oh...."

 

 

lol

 

 

From then forward, I've always used just INT unless I need to zerofill a column.

[ohitsme]

Lol, didn't think it would be that...

 

i did wonder why you didn't need to always put a length value for int...