[TYPO3-dev] Why have boolean database fields types like tinyint(4) etc?

[Steffen Kamper]

Hi,

Ries van Twisk schrieb:
> 
> 
> I wouldn't opt for ENUM but keep it as tiny int,
> the main problem here is MySQL's odd behavior of the 'BOOLEAN' types 
> TRUE and FALSE.
> They are constants for 1 and 0. Apparently this is legal in MySQL SELECT 
> TRUE + TRUE;
> Which is totally bogus and doesn't make sense, code like that could even 
> sli`p into extension (I think core people are smarter..)
>

ouch

> I would simply accept that  MySQL doesn't have an efficient storage 
> mechanism for booleans.
> 
tinyint is totally ok, and it's small. Using 0 and 1 in query is also 
perfect, and it's compatible to any other DB.

> emulating ENUMS in other DB's might be more harder then it sounds like,
> special when it comes to modifying enums....
> 

i first liked ENUM, but in all the years i really didn't needed them. In 
general i do such logic in php and not in MySQL.

I see no real potential for optimizing for boolean. There are lot of 
other places where optimization is needed, so let's bundle the forces to 
them.

vg Steffen