MySQL VARCHAR size?

Question

I\'m wondering, if I have a VARCHAR of 200 characters and that I put a string of 100 characters, will it use 200 bytes or it will just use the actual size of the string?

Answer 1

100 characters.

This is the var (variable) in varchar: you only store what you enter (and an extra 2 bytes to store length upto 65535)

If it was char(200) then you'd always store 200 characters, padded with 100 spaces

See the docs: "The CHAR and VARCHAR Types"