I'm creating a form for sending private messages and want to set the maxlength value of a textarea appropriate to the max length of a text field in my MySQL database table. How many characters can a type text field store?
If a lot, would I be able to specify length in the database text type field as I would with varchar?
TEXT is a string data type that can store up to 65,535 characters.
But still if you want to store more data then change its data type to LONGTEXT
ALTER TABLE name_tabel CHANGE text_field LONGTEXT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NOT NULL;
For the MySql version 8.0.
Data Type Storage Required
TINYINT 1 byte
SMALLINT 2 bytes
MEDIUMINT 3 bytes
INT, INTEGER 4 bytes
BIGINT 8 bytes
FLOAT(p) 4 bytes if 0 <= p <= 24, 8 bytes if 25 <= p <= 53
FLOAT 4 bytes
DOUBLE, REAL 8 bytes
DECIMAL(M,D), NUMERIC(M,D) Varies; see following discussion
BIT(M) approximately (M+7)/8 bytes
Values for DECIMAL (and NUMERIC) columns are represented using a binary format that packs nine decimal (base 10) digits into four bytes. Storage for the integer and fractional parts of each value are determined separately. Each multiple of nine digits requires four bytes, and the “leftover” digits require some fraction of four bytes. The storage required for excess digits is given by the following table.
Date and Time Type Storage Requirements For TIME, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP columns, the storage required for tables created before MySQL 5.6.4 differs from tables created from 5.6.4 on. This is due to a change in 5.6.4 that permits these types to have a fractional part, which requires from 0 to 3 bytes.
Data Type Storage Required Before MySQL 5.6.4 Storage Required as of MySQL 5.6.4
YEAR 1 byte 1 byte
DATE 3 bytes 3 bytes
TIME 3 bytes 3 bytes + fractional seconds storage
DATETIME 8 bytes 5 bytes + fractional seconds storage
TIMESTAMP 4 bytes 4 bytes + fractional seconds storage
As of MySQL 5.6.4, storage for YEAR and DATE remains unchanged. However, TIME, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP are represented differently. DATETIME is packed more efficiently, requiring 5 rather than 8 bytes for the nonfractional part, and all three parts have a fractional part that requires from 0 to 3 bytes, depending on the fractional seconds precision of stored values.
Fractional Seconds Precision Storage Required
0 0 bytes
1, 2 1 byte
3, 4 2 bytes
5, 6 3 bytes
For example, TIME(0), TIME(2), TIME(4), and TIME(6) use 3, 4, 5, and 6 bytes, respectively. TIME and TIME(0) are equivalent and require the same storage.
For details about internal representation of temporal values, see MySQL Internals: Important Algorithms and Structures.
String Type Storage Requirements In the following table, M represents the declared column length in characters for nonbinary string types and bytes for binary string types. L represents the actual length in bytes of a given string value.
Data Type Storage Required
CHAR(M) The compact family of InnoDB row formats optimize storage for variable-length character sets. See COMPACT Row Format Characteristics. Otherwise, M × w bytes, <= M <= 255, where w is the number of bytes required for the maximum-length character in the character set.
BINARY(M) M bytes, 0 <= M <= 255
VARCHAR(M), VARBINARY(M) L + 1 bytes if column values require 0 − 255 bytes, L + 2 bytes if values may require more than 255 bytes
TINYBLOB, TINYTEXT L + 1 bytes, where L < 28
BLOB, TEXT L + 2 bytes, where L < 216
MEDIUMBLOB, MEDIUMTEXT L + 3 bytes, where L < 224
LONGBLOB, LONGTEXT L + 4 bytes, where L < 232
ENUM('value1','value2',...) 1 or 2 bytes, depending on the number of enumeration values (65,535 values maximum)
SET('value1','value2',...) 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 bytes, depending on the number of set members (64 members maximum)