3. Data Types
Virtually everything you do in MySQL involves data in some way or another because, by definition, the purpose of a database management system is to manage data. Even a statement as simple as SELECT 1 involves evaluation of an expression to produce an integer data value.
Every data value in MySQL has a type. For example, 37.4 is a number and 'abc' is a string. Sometimes data types are explicit, such as when you issue a CREATE TABLE statement that specifies the type for each column you define as part of the table:
Other times data types are implicit, such as when you refer to literal values in an expression, pass values to a function, ...
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