title: mysql maximum row size
body: <p>I don't know why I'm having this odd behaviour on <code>mysql 5.6.24</code> , can you help me ? do you think it's a bug</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysql -D database --default_character_set utf8 -e "ALTER TABLE abc_folder ADD COLUMN lev10 varchar(5000);"
  </code></pre>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>ERROR 1118 (42000) at line 1: Row size too large. The maximum row size for the used table type, not counting BLOBs, is 65535. This includes storage overhead, check the manual. You have to change some columns to TEXT or BLOBs</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>instead </p>
  
  <pre><code> mysql -D database --default_character_set utf8 -e "ALTER TABLE abc_folder ADD COLUMN lev10 varchar(50000);"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In other words a bigger varchar() entry is accepted and correctly working.
  Does anybody know what is going on ?</p>