11.9 Using Data Types from Other Database Engines

To facilitate the use of code written for SQL implementations from other vendors, MySQL maps data types as shown in the following table. These mappings make it easier to import table definitions from other database systems into MySQL.

Other Vendor Type	MySQL Type
BOOL	TINYINT
BOOLEAN	TINYINT
CHARACTER VARYING(M)	VARCHAR(M)
FIXED	DECIMAL
FLOAT4	FLOAT
FLOAT8	DOUBLE
INT1	TINYINT
INT2	SMALLINT
INT3	MEDIUMINT
INT4	INT
INT8	BIGINT
LONG VARBINARY	MEDIUMBLOB
LONG VARCHAR	MEDIUMTEXT
LONG	MEDIUMTEXT
MIDDLEINT	MEDIUMINT
NUMERIC	DECIMAL

Data type mapping occurs at table creation time, after which the original type specifications are discarded. If you create a table with types used by other vendors and then issue a DESCRIBE tbl_name statement, MySQL reports the table structure using the equivalent MySQL types. For example:

mysql> CREATE TABLE t (a BOOL, b FLOAT8, c LONG VARCHAR, d NUMERIC);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> DESCRIBE t;
+-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type          | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| a     | tinyint(1)    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| b     | double        | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| c     | mediumtext    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| d     | decimal(10,0) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
4 rows in set (0.01 sec)