This section describes how the binary collation for binary strings compares to the _bin collations for nonbinary strings.

Binary strings (as stored using the BINARY, VARBINARY, and BLOB data types) have a character set and collation named binary. Binary strings are sequences of bytes and the numeric values of those bytes determine comparison and sort order.

Nonbinary strings (as stored using the CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT data types) have a character set and collation other than binary. A given nonbinary character set can have several collations, each of which defines a particular comparison and sort order for the characters in the set. One of these is the binary collation for the character set, indicated by a _bin suffix in the collation name. For example, the binary collations for latin1 and utf8 are named latin1_bin and utf8_bin, respectively.

The binary collation differs from the _bin collations in several respects.

The unit for comparison and sorting.  Binary strings are sequences of bytes. For the binary collation, comparison and sorting are based on numeric byte values. Nonbinary strings are sequences of characters, which might be multibyte. Collations for nonbinary strings define an ordering of the character values for comparison and sorting. For the _bin collation, this ordering is based on numeric character code values, which is similar to ordering for binary strings except that character code values might be multibyte.

Character set conversion.  A nonbinary string has a character set and is automatically converted to another character set in many cases, even when the string has a _bin collation:

For binary string columns, no conversion occurs. For the preceding cases, the string value is copied byte-wise.

Lettercase conversion.  Collations for nonbinary character sets provide information about lettercase of characters, so characters in a nonbinary string can be converted from one lettercase to another, even for _bin collations that ignore lettercase for ordering:

mysql> SET NAMES latin1 COLLATE latin1_bin;
mysql> SELECT LOWER('aA'), UPPER('zZ');
+-------------+-------------+
| LOWER('aA') | UPPER('zZ') |
+-------------+-------------+
| aa          | ZZ          |
+-------------+-------------+

The concept of lettercase does not apply to bytes in a binary string. To perform lettercase conversion, the string must be converted to a nonbinary string:

mysql> SET NAMES binary;
mysql> SELECT LOWER('aA'), LOWER(CONVERT('aA' USING latin1));
+-------------+-----------------------------------+
| LOWER('aA') | LOWER(CONVERT('aA' USING latin1)) |
+-------------+-----------------------------------+
| aA          | aa                                |
+-------------+-----------------------------------+

Trailing space handling in comparisons.  Nonbinary strings have PADSPACE behavior for all collations, including _bin collations. Trailing spaces are insignificant in comparisons:

mysql> SET NAMES utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin;
mysql> SELECT 'a ' = 'a';
+------------+
| 'a ' = 'a' |
+------------+
|          1 |
+------------+

For binary strings, all characters are significant in comparisons, including trailing spaces:

mysql> SET NAMES binary;
mysql> SELECT 'a ' = 'a';
+------------+
| 'a ' = 'a' |
+------------+
|          0 |
+------------+

Trailing space handling for inserts and retrievals.  CHAR(N) columns store nonbinary strings. Values shorter than N characters are extended with spaces on insertion. For retrieval, trailing spaces are removed.

BINARY(N) columns store binary strings. Values shorter than N bytes are extended with 0x00 bytes on insertion. For retrieval, nothing is removed; a value of the declared length is always returned.

mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (
         a CHAR(10) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin,
         b BINARY(10)
       );
mysql> INSERT INTO t1 VALUES ('a','a');
mysql> SELECT HEX(a), HEX(b) FROM t1;
+--------+----------------------+
| HEX(a) | HEX(b)               |
+--------+----------------------+
| 61     | 61000000000000000000 |
+--------+----------------------+