MySql Binary query - mysql

Question

I have a table with a Binary PK:
CREATE TABLE `codes` (
`Code` binary(45) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`Code`),
UNIQUE KEY `Code_UNIQUE` (`Code`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
When I insert I use BINARY('value').
I attempted to retrieve a row by Code using the following:
SELECT * from codes WHERE `Code` = BINARY('value')
This doesn't work because the length of the Code field is 45, so MySql pads the data with empty bytes.
This can be visualised running the following:
SELECT HEX(Code), HEX(BINARY('value')) FROM codes
I can get it to work with this (ugly) query:
SELECT * FROM codes WHERE TRIM('0' from HEX(Code)) = HEX(BINARY('value'))
So I was just wondering if anyone can provide a nice and performant way to achieve this. This is straightforward if you know the size of your data, but the Code field can be any length.

Answer 1

Instead of Binary datatype, you should use Varbinary. This will not pad the data with trailing 0s, in case the length of data is smaller than the maximum size defined.
When BINARY values are stored, they are right-padded with the pad
value to the specified length. The pad value is 0x00 (the zero byte).
Values are right-padded with 0x00 on insert, and no trailing bytes are
removed on select.
For VARBINARY, there is no padding on insert and no bytes are stripped
on select.
Also, you do not need to define Unique constraint on an already defined Primary Key. Primary Key basically satisfied the Unique constraint, with additional condition of NOT NULL values. So, defining Unique constraint further does not add anything upon it.
This is how the CREATE TABLE statement can be:
CREATE TABLE `codes` (
`Code` Varbinary(45) NOT NULL, -- Changed to Varbinary
PRIMARY KEY (`Code`) -- Removed Unique constraint
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
insert into codes (Code) VALUES (BINARY('value'));
Query #1
SELECT HEX(Code), HEX(BINARY('value')) FROM codes ;
| HEX(Code) | HEX(BINARY('value')) |
| ---------- | -------------------- |
| 76616C7565 | 76616C7565 |
Query #2
SELECT * from codes WHERE `Code` = BINARY('value');
| Code |
| --------------- |
| [object Object] |
View on DB Fiddle