MySQL BLOB Data Types for Binary Data

BLOB means binary large object. BLOB columns store binary strings (raw bytes), which makes them suitable for binary content when keeping that content inside the database is appropriate.

CREATE TABLE document_store (
    id INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    file_name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    file_data LONGBLOB NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

BLOB families

Type	Maximum length
TINYBLOB	255 bytes
BLOB	65,535 bytes
MEDIUMBLOB	16,777,215 bytes
LONGBLOB	4,294,967,295 bytes

BLOB values are compared as binary strings. The corresponding TEXT families store character strings and use character sets and collations.

Avoid selecting large BLOB columns when the application does not need them. Prefer an explicit column list instead of SELECT * for large tables.

All Data Types PDO BLOB Example

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BLOB Data Types in MySQL

BLOB families

Subhendu Mohapatra