title: What does the number in parenthesis really mean?
body: <p>I always thought that the number in the parenthesis represented the <em>field length</em>?</p>
  <p>However, I understand that is not always the case. Maybe it's a MySQL issue? Someone told me if I set a field to 9 characters long, I can add a value that's more than 9 characters but only the first 9 will be saved.</p>
  <p>Example:</p>
  <pre><code>CREATE TABLE `person` (
      id INT,
      age INT(2)
  );
  </code></pre>
  <p>If that's the case, shouldn't I select something like <code>TINYINT</code> instead of <code>INT</code> for age?</p>