size of MySql database

Anon

can anybody tell me how to get the size of a whole MySql db? I didn't find anything that could work 🙁

One more question. If I assign a field in the MySql table as a "long blob" and it isn't filled or only with some chars, would it be better to take varchar or (tiny)blob instead? Would this be faster or require less space in the database?

Thanks for help.

Anon

Since the directories that hold the MySQL data files are usually only readable by root, you'd have to run a shell script through sudo or suexec that does a du -ks or similar command on the directory that holds the database and prints the size out.

[deleted]

1) You'd have to look at the sizes of the actual data files, like ProgrammerMan said.

2) Using appropriate datatype nearly allways gives some sort of advantage.
I'm not sure how much speed difference there is between a varchar and a blob, but you may find a considerable speed diff between CHAR and VARCHAR. This is traded off against a larger database when using CHAR.

stealth

Have someone some examples?
I mean how much faster is CHAR then VARCHAR?

[deleted]

It's not so much char being faster than varchar, it more that
if you use only CHAR and not VARCHAR, then every row will be the same length in the table. If you use varchar, the database also has to store the length ot each row seperately, which takes time to read/write.
So using 19 CHARS and one VARCHAR will not speed things up very much.