Difference between CHAR and VARCHAR in MySQL

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What Are the Differences between CHAR and VARCHAR in MySQL?

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A

CHAR and VARCHAR are both ASCII character data types by default. But they have the following major differences:

CHAR stores values in fixed lengths. Values are padded with space characters to match the specified length.
VARCHAR stores values in variable lengths. Values are not padded with any characters. But 1 or 2 extra bytes are added to store the length of the data.

The table below shows you a good comparison of CHAR and VARCHAR data types:

Value    CHAR(4)       Length 
''       '    '        4 bytes
'ab'     'ab  '        4 bytes
'abcd'   'abcd'        4 bytes 

Value    VARCHAR(4)    Length
''       ''            1 byte 
'ab'     'ab'          3 bytes
'abcd'   'abcd'        5 bytes

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⇑ Introduction to SQL Basics in MySQL

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