Facebook user_id : big_int, int or string?

Question

Facebook\'s user id\'s go up to 2^32 .. which by my count it 4294967296.

mySQL\'s unsigned int\'s range is 0 to 4294967295 (which is 1 short - or my math is wrong) a

Answer 1

Store them as strings.

The Facebook Graph API returns ids as strings, so if you want comparisons to work without having to cast, you should use strings. IMO this trumps other considerations.