In this article, I want to discuss a couple of pretty new
features in MySQL 8.0 — and an older one. Maybe these are minor
features you are not aware of, and maybe not so relevant, to be
honest. But it is worth providing a quick overview, showing how
they work, and how they could be useful in some cases.
All refer to the invisibility of something:
- Invisible columns
- Generated invisible primary keys
- Invisible indexes
Let’s take a look.
Invisible columns
The invisible columns feature has been deployed since version
8.0.23. What is an invisible column? It’s basically a regular
column of a table with its own name and data type. It is treated
and updated as any other regular column, with the only difference
being that it is invisible to the application. In other words, it
can be accessed only in the case it is explicitly addressed in
your SELECT; otherwise, it is …
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