1.6.3.4 ENUM and SET Constraints

ENUM and SET columns provide an efficient way to define columns that can contain only a given set of values. See Section 13.3.5, “The ENUM Type”, and Section 13.3.6, “The SET Type”.

Unless strict mode is disabled (not recommended, but see Section 7.1.11, “Server SQL Modes”), the definition of a ENUM or SET column acts as a constraint on values entered into the column. An error occurs for values that do not satisfy these conditions:

• An ENUM value must be one of those listed in the column definition, or the internal numeric equivalent thereof. The value cannot be the error value (that is, 0 or the empty string). For a column defined as ENUM('a','b','c'), values such as '', 'd', or 'ax' are invalid and are rejected.

• A SET value must be the empty string or a value consisting only of the values listed in the column definition separated by commas. For a column defined as SET('a','b','c'), values such as 'd' or 'a,b,c,d' are invalid and are rejected.

Errors for invalid values can be suppressed in strict mode if you use INSERT IGNORE or UPDATE IGNORE. In this case, a warning is generated rather than an error. For ENUM, the value is inserted as the error member (0). For SET, the value is inserted as given except that any invalid substrings are deleted. For example, 'a,x,b,y' results in a value of 'a,b'.