MySQL field type to count bytes filesize

Question

I'm storing document information (Word, excel, ...) in a MySQL database. I have a column "size" where I store the filesize in bytes like 582656, 136260, 383266... But when I order by size, the results are a little bit disorderly. What type of MySQL field should I use? I've tried VARCHAR and INT, the same result.

Answer 1

VARCHAR will definitely give you the incorrect results as is will sort from left to right.

eg, VARCHAR sorted will place 12 before 2, as the first 1 in 12 is less than 2.

But INT should give you what you require.

Have a look at a couple of types here

Numeric Types