Redgate Data Modeler

5 November 2015

Interesting Changes in MySQL 5.7

The General Availability version of MySQL is still version 5.6, but the development release of MySQL 5.7 definitely introduces some exciting changes to the world of database management systems. Is it worth giving a try? In this article, we’ll have a closer look at a few brand-new features that may help you decide to do so.

Native JSON Support

JSON (short for Java Script Object Notation) is a format for storing information which can be a good alternative to XML. If you haven’t encountered it already, take a look at a very simple example of a JSON document:

JSON support has only been introduced in MySQL 5.7.8, but it is undoubtedly the feature that arouses most enthusiasm among MySQL users. Previously, you could only store JSON documents using general types like strings. This, of course, had its drawbacks: you had to validate/parse data on your own, experience difficulties trying to update information or cope with slower insert operations.

With the new native type since MySQL 5.7.8, you get a very convenient way to deal with JSON documents. You can now enjoy automatic validation during insert and update operations as well as efficient, much quicker access to object and array members with a series of new tailor-made functions. Let’s create a simple table user with a JSON column:

Next, we can create a few rows with the new column type. Our table might look like this: