title: Which is faster: char(1) or tinyint(1) ? Why?
body: <p><strong>MY PLATFORM:</strong></p>
  
  <p>PHP &amp; mySQL</p>
  
  <p><strong>MY SITUATION:</strong></p>
  
  <p>I came across a situation where I need to store a value for user selection in one of my columns of a table. Now my options would be to:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Either declare the Column as char(1) and store the value as 'y' or 'n'</li>
  <li>Or declare the Column as tinyint(1) and store the value as 1 or 0</li>
  <li>This column so declared, may also be indexed for use within the application.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p><strong>MY QUESTIONS:</strong></p>
  
  <p>So I wanted to know, which of the above two types:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Leads to faster query speed when that column is accessed (for the sake of simplicity, let's leave out mixing other queries or accessing other columns, please).</p></li>
  <li><p>Is the most efficient way of storing and accessing data and why?</p></li>
  <li><p>How does the access speed vary if the columns are indexed and when they are not? </p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>My understanding is that since char(1) and tinyint(1) take up only 1 byte space, storage space will not be an issue in this case. Then what would remain is the access speed. As far as I know, numeric indexing is faster and more efficient than anything else. 
   But the case here is tough one to decide, I think. Would definitely like to hear your experience on this one.</p>
  
  <p>Thank you in advance.</p>