What are the potential pitfalls of storing phone numbers as integers in a MySQL database when using PHP?

Storing phone numbers as integers in a MySQL database can lead to data loss or incorrect formatting, as integers do not support leading zeros or special characters commonly found in phone numbers. To avoid this issue, it is recommended to store phone numbers as strings in the database. 

// Instead of storing phone numbers as integers, store them as strings in the database
// Example code snippet to create a table with phone numbers stored as strings

$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "myDB";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

$sql = "CREATE TABLE phone_numbers (
    id INT(6) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    phone_number VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL
)";

if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "Table phone_numbers created successfully";
} else {
    echo "Error creating table: " . $conn->error;
}

$conn->close();

Keywords

MySQL database phone numbers integers PHP

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