How to store phone numbers on MySQL databases? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Form my point of view, below is my suggestions:

1. Store phone number into a single field as varchar and if you need to split then after retrieve split accordingly.
2. If you store as number then preceding 0 will truncate, so always store as varchar
3. Validate users phone number before inserting into your table.

Answer 2

You should never store values with format. Formatting should be done in the view depending on user preferences.

Searching for phone nunbers with mixed formatting is near impossible.

For this case I would split into fields and store as integer. Numbers are faster than texts and splitting them and putting index on them makes all kind of queries ran fast.

Leading 0 could be a problem but probably not. In Sweden all area codes start with 0 and that is removed if also a country code is dialed. But the 0 isn't really a part of the number, it's a indicator used to tell that I'm adding an area code. Same for country code, you add 00 to say that you use a county code.

Leading 0 shouldn't be stored, they should be added when needed. Say you store 00 in the database and you use a server that only works with + they you have to replace 00 with + for that application.

So, store numbers as numbers.

Answer 3

varchar, Don't store separating characters you may want to format the phone numbers differently for different uses. so store (619) 123-4567 as 6191234567 I work with phone directory data and have found this to be the best practice.

Answer 4

• All as varchar (they aren't numbers but "collections of digits")
• Country + area + number separately
• Not all countries have area code (eg Malta where I am)
• Some countries drop the leading zero from the area code when dialling internal (eg UK)
• Format in the client code

Answer 5

I would recommend storing these as numbers in columns of type varchar - one column per "field" (like contry code etc.).

The format should be applied when you interact with a user... that makes it easier to account for format changes for example and will help esp. when your application goes international...

Answer 6

I suggest storing the numbers in a varchar without formatting. Then you can just reformat the numbers on the client side appropriately. Some cultures prefer to have phone numbers written differently; in France, they write phone numbers like 01-22-33-44-55.

You might also consider storing another field for the country that the phone number is for, because this can be difficult to figure out based on the number you are looking at. The UK uses 11 digit long numbers, some African countries use 7 digit long numbers.

That said, I used to work for a UK phone company, and we stored phone numbers in our database based on if they were UK or international. So, a UK phone number would be 02081234123 and an international one would be 001800300300.