Tested with a broad range of different compilers.Written in C and C++.
Data Types
Many data types: signed/unsigned integers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 bytes long, FLOAT, DOUBLE, CHAR, VARCHAR, BINARY, VARBINARY, TEXT, BLOB, DATE, TIME, DATETIME, TIMESTAMP, YEAR, SET, ENUM, and OpenGIS spatial types.
Statements and Functions
Full operator and function support in the SELECT list and WHERE clause of queries.
Security:
A privilege and password system that is very flexible and secure, and that enables host-based verification.
Scalability and Limits:
Support for large databases. We use MySQL Server with databases that contain 50 million records. We also know of users who use MySQL Server with 200,000 tables and about 5,000,000,000 rows.
Connectivity:
Clients can connect to MySQL Server using several protocols.
Localization:
The server can provide error messages to clients in many languages.
Clients and Tools:
MySQL includes several client and utility programs. These include both command-line programs such as mysqldump and mysqladmin, and graphical programs such as MySQL Workbench.