Or, “Missing information in the MySQL Manual”.

Just earlier today, I was using POW(), which I’ve grown quite fond of, simply because it makes life easier. I prefer using it like SELECT 512*POW(1024,2) to find out the number of bytes to put in a variable, for example.

First, let’s take a look at the POW function:

Name: 'POW'
Description:
Syntax:
POW(X,Y)

Returns the value of X raised to the power of Y.

Okay, so it gives us a value; but what about the data type? Let’s take 512*POW(1024,2) as an example.

5067 (blogs) > SELECT 512*POW(1024,2) AS example;
+-----------+
| example   |
+-----------+
| 536870912 | 
+-----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

What is that? Well, it sure does look like an INT at this point, …