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My primary indexes are unique reference numbers like 002345 and 000023.
If I format them as integers I loose my zero’s. They need to be 6 digits.
Can I use CHAR? I don’t need any auto increments.
Yes, you can use a
CHARcolumn as a primary key in MySQL.However you should consider keeping your reference numbers as integers and applying the leading 0s at the application level.
You may also want to consider using a surrogate key that is not derived from the reference number or any other application data. The main advantage would be that your records won’t lose their “handle” if the order reference number ever changes. You will also get the additional performance of an integer index as a positive side-effect.