How to automatically convert a MySQL column to lowercase

Question

Is there a property that I can add to a column so that it converts its value to lowercase? Instead of doing it for every single value through PHP?

Answer 1

Yes, but don't do it.

If you want exclusively lowercase characters in a column, convert them when you insert (or update) them.

If you need a column to be case insensitive in comparisons, use a case insensitive collation (which are used by default in e.g. utf8 columns)

Answer 2

You could probably do it through a trigger that fires on insert or update. Myself, I'd rather just create a view that has a lower-case version of the column in question. The SQL for the view might look like

SELECT ID, LOWER(MY_COLUMN) AS MY_COLUMN_LOWERCASE
FROM MY_TABLE;