How Does Binary Collation in MySQL Impact Data Handling and Comparison?

Impact of Using Binary Collation

Binary collation plays a significant role in data handling and comparison in MySQL. It offers advantages and implications that are distinct from other collations like utf8_general_ci.

Key Differences:

1. Sorting Order: Binary collation (_bin) follows a strictly byte-based comparison, treating characters as numerical values. This can result in an unnatural sorting order, such as placing accented characters (e.g., umlauts) at the end of the alphabet.
2. Case Sensitivity: Unlike case-insensitive collations, _bin collations are case-sensitive. This means that strings with varying capitalization will not be considered equal.
3. Character Equality: In _bin collations, characters with diacritics, such as Ä and A, are not considered equal. This can affect search and comparison operations.

Additional Impacts:

In addition to the key differences, there are other notable effects of using _bin collations:

• Speed Benefits: Binary collation offers performance advantages due to its simplified comparison algorithm.
• Index Efficiency: Indexes with _bin collations can be beneficial for exact matches, where the precise value of a string is important.
• Search Limitations: _bin collations can limit the effectiveness of search operations when dealing with case-insensitive or accented characters.

Reference:

• [9.1.2. Character Sets and Collations in MySQL](https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/charset-general.html)
• [9.1.7.6. The _bin and binary Collations in the mySQL manual](https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/charset-binary.html)
• [9.1.7.7. The BINARY Operator](https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/binary-operator.html)

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