Always use ints. Also, make sure you actually need an INT before using it:
Max Value
Unsigned Integer: 4.3 billion or so
Unsigned MediumInt: 16.7 million
unsigned SmallInt: 65,535
unsigned TinyInt: 255
If you'll only ever have 300,000 rows in a table, use a mediumint. Saves
space and sorting time. I use mediumint on almost all tables for primary
keys and foreign keys.
Peter
On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, Monty wrote:
> Is it more efficient to store record IDs in a MySQL database as an Integer
> or a String? I like string IDs better because you can create meaningful
> names, but, not sure if this means the DB has to work harder or not.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
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Peter Beckman Systems Engineer, Fairfax Cable Access Corporation
beckman@purplecow.com http://www.purplecow.com/
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