What is the benefit of zerofill in MySQL?

Question

I just want to know what is the benefit/usage of defining ZEROFILL for INT DataType in MySQL?

`id` INT UNSIGNED ZEROFILL NOT NULL 

Answer 1

When you select a column with type ZEROFILL it pads the displayed value of the field with zeros up to the display width specified in the column definition. Values longer than the display width are not truncated. Note that usage of ZEROFILL also implies UNSIGNED.

Using ZEROFILL and a display width has no effect on how the data is stored. It affects only how it is displayed.

Here is some example SQL that demonstrates the use of ZEROFILL:

CREATE TABLE yourtable (x INT(8) ZEROFILL NOT NULL, y INT(8) NOT NULL);
INSERT INTO yourtable (x,y) VALUES
(1, 1),
(12, 12),
(123, 123),
(123456789, 123456789);
SELECT x, y FROM yourtable;

Result:

        x          y
 00000001          1
 00000012         12
 00000123        123
123456789  123456789

Answer 2

One example in order to understand, where the usage of ZEROFILL might be interesting:

In Germany, we have 5 digit zipcodes. However, those Codes may start with a Zero, so 80337 is a valid zipcode for munic, 01067 is a zipcode of Berlin.

As you see, any German citizen expects the zipcodes to be displayed as a 5 digit code, so 1067 looks strange.

In order to store those data, you could use a VARCHAR(5) or INT(5) ZEROFILL whereas the zerofilled integer has two big advantages:

1. Lot lesser storage space on hard disk
2. If you insert 1067, you still get 01067 back

Maybe this example helps understanding the use of ZEROFILL.