The BINARY and VARBINARY Types

mysql> CREATE TABLE t (c BINARY(3));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.21 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO t SET c = 'a';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.18 sec)

mysql>  SELECT HEX(c), c = 'a', c = 'a' from t;
+--------+---------+-------------+
| HEX(c) | c = 'a' | c = 'a' |
+--------+---------+-------------+
| 610000 |       0 |           1 |
+--------+---------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO t SET c = 'a';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.19 sec)

mysql>  SELECT HEX(c), c = 'a', c = 'a' from t;
+--------+---------+-------------+
| HEX(c) | c = 'a' | c = 'a' |
+--------+---------+-------------+
| 610000 |       0 |           1 |
| 610000 |       0 |           1 |
+--------+---------+-------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO t SET c = 'a ';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.19 sec)

mysql>  SELECT HEX(c), c = 'a', c = 'a' from t;
+--------+---------+-------------+
| HEX(c) | c = 'a' | c = 'a' |
+--------+---------+-------------+
| 610000 |       0 |           1 |
| 610000 |       0 |           1 |
| 612000 |       0 |           0 |
+--------+---------+-------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT x'4D7953514C';
+---------------+
| x'4D7953514C' |
+---------------+
| MySQL         |
+---------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select x'612000';
+-----------+
| x'612000' |
+-----------+
| a         |
+-----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select x'610000';
+-----------+
| x'610000' |
+-----------+
| a         |
+-----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE t2 (c varBINARY(3));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.23 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO t2 SET c = 'a';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.17 sec)

mysql> select * from t2;
+------+
| c    |
+------+
| a    |
+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT HEX(c), c = 'a', c = 'a' from t2;
+--------+---------+-------------+
| HEX(c) | c = 'a' | c = 'a' |
+--------+---------+-------------+
| 61     |       1 |           0 |
+--------+---------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)