Tinkering with MySQL and wondered if anyone can advise me on this.

If I want to store the number 200, is it best to use:

a) TINYINT(4) UNSIGNED (which gives me 0 - 255)

or

b) SMALLINT(4) which allows for -32768 to 32767.

I read several places on the MySQL site that 'unsigned' is 'non-standard' so I wondered if it's worth bothering with for the amount of space saved. I also need to perform some 'sum' calculations at some point so I want to use the right data type.

Any tips would be apreciated

I always use UNSIGNED in mySQL, but if you want use other database like postgreSQL, you can use SMALLINT.
SMALLINT takes 4 bytes, TINYINT takes 2 bytes.
When you use TINYINT you save 2 bytes per record.

Thx Without.

It does indeed seem a sensible thing to do to optimise the DB. I get the impression this only becomes an issue if you transfer to another DB system that doesn't support it - which isn't going to happen in my case.

Welcome to Xoops.org BTW.