What is the best datatype for storing URLs in a MySQL database?

Question

What is the best datatype for storing URLs in a MySQL database?

The ideal would be something that doesn't take up a lot of space but can easily handle variable length URLs.

Answer 1

If by "links" you mean links to web pages, I'm guessing you want to store URLs.

Since URLs are variable length strings the VARCHAR data type would seem the obvious choice.

Answer 2

I recommend a VARCHAR field and the length is really personal opinion on what kind of URLs you are anticipating storing. You can get away with VARCHAR(255) without increasing the storage requirements for a VARCHAR field without penalty.

CREATE TABLE example(
    id INT(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    url varchar(125)  
);

$url = 'http://www.google.com';
$sql = 'INSERT INTO example SET url = ' . mysql_real_escape_string($url);

Answer 3

You can store URLs as simple strings, but be careful when comparing values since URLs may come in various forms while actually representing the same location (for example with/without the initial protocol identifier, or with/without a trailing slash).