BINARY casts the string to a binary string : BINARY « Cast Functions Operators « MySQL Tutorial

1. MySQL Tutorial
2. Cast Functions Operators
3. BINARY

BINARY causes the comparison to be case sensitive.

BINARY also causes trailing spaces to be significant.

BINARY str is shorthand for CAST(str AS BINARY).

mysql>
mysql> SELECT 'a' = 'A';
+-----------+
| 'a' = 'A' |
+-----------+
|         1 |
+-----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT BINARY 'a' = 'A';
+------------------+
| BINARY 'a' = 'A' |
+------------------+
|                0 |
+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT 'a' = 'a ';
+------------+
| 'a' = 'a ' |
+------------+
|          1 |
+------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT BINARY 'a' = 'a ';
+-------------------+
| BINARY 'a' = 'a ' |
+-------------------+
|                 0 |
+-------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>