[Phpmyadmin-devel] export and BINARY columns

[Marc Delisle]

Hi,

Regarding this bug 
,https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=981359&group_id=23067&atid=377408

once again we face the problem of interpreting just what is meant by BINARY.

Exporting the mysql.user table, which, depending on the version, has 
some fields marked BINARY, causes a problem *seeing* the expected 
results, because they are in 0x format. Of course the correct data is there.

In MySQL:
As of MySQL 4.1, values in CHAR and VARCHAR columns are sorted and 
compared according to the collation of the character set assigned to the 
column. Before MySQL 4.1, sorting and comparison are based on the 
collation of the server character set; you can declare the column with 
the BINARY attribute to cause sorting and comparison to be case 
sensitive using the underlying character code values rather then a 
lexical ordering. BINARY doesn't affect how the column is stored or 
retrieved.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/CHAR.html

So, in the intention of MySQL's authors, BINARY does not mean that the
contents is binary.

In libraries/export/sql.php:
} else if (stristr($field_flags[$j], 'BINARY')) {
                     $values[] = '0x' . bin2hex($row[$j]);

As the user suggests, should we add an option "Use hexadecimal format 
for BINARY" ?

Marc