You can select the binary logging format explicitly by starting the MySQL server with --binlog-format=type. The supported values for type are:

In MySQL 5.5, the default binary logging format is STATEMENT. This includes MySQL Cluster NDB 7.2.1 and later MySQL Cluster NDB 7.2 releases, which are based on MySQL 5.5.

The logging format also can be switched at runtime. To specify the format globally for all clients, set the global value of the binlog_format system variable:

mysql> SET GLOBAL binlog_format = 'STATEMENT';
mysql> SET GLOBAL binlog_format = 'ROW';
mysql> SET GLOBAL binlog_format = 'MIXED';

An individual client can control the logging format for its own statements by setting the session value of binlog_format:

mysql> SET SESSION binlog_format = 'STATEMENT';
mysql> SET SESSION binlog_format = 'ROW';
mysql> SET SESSION binlog_format = 'MIXED';

To change the global or session binlog_format value, you must have the SUPER privilege.

In addition to switching the logging format manually, a slave server may switch the format automatically. This happens when the server is running in either STATEMENT or MIXED format and encounters an event in the binary log that is written in ROW logging format. In that case, the slave switches to row-based replication temporarily for that event, and switches back to the previous format afterward.

There are several reasons why a client might want to set binary logging on a per-session basis:

There are exceptions when you cannot switch the replication format at runtime:

Trying to switch the format in any of these cases results in an error.

If you are using InnoDB tables and the transaction isolation level is READ COMMITTED or READ UNCOMMITTED, only row-based logging can be used. It is possible to change the logging format to STATEMENT, but doing so at runtime leads very rapidly to errors because InnoDB can no longer perform inserts.

Switching the replication format at runtime is not recommended when any temporary tables exist, because temporary tables are logged only when using statement-based replication, whereas with row-based replication they are not logged. With mixed replication, temporary tables are usually logged; exceptions happen with user-defined functions (UDFs) and with the UUID() function.

With the binary log format set to ROW, many changes are written to the binary log using the row-based format. Some changes, however, still use the statement-based format. Examples include all DDL (data definition language) statements such as CREATE TABLE, ALTER TABLE, or DROP TABLE.

The --binlog-row-event-max-size option is available for servers that are capable of row-based replication. Rows are stored into the binary log in chunks having a size in bytes not exceeding the value of this option. The value must be a multiple of 256. The default value is 1024.