[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #36625: Don't CAST the post meta value to CHAR in meta query

[WordPress Trac]

#36625: Don't CAST the post meta value to CHAR in meta query
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 Reporter:  ericlewis    |      Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Query        |    Version:  3.1
 Severity:  normal       |   Keywords:
  Focuses:               |
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 This topic came up in
 [https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/19738#comment:10 19738], and
 warrants its own ticket.

 Before r15724 (see #9124), if you had a post with meta for `rating` of 100
 and performed a meta query looking for posts with a `rating` higher than
 50, the query would not return that post. This is because the MySQL
 generated for WP_Query performed a string comparison, as both sides of the
 comparison were strings, e.g. `wp_postmeta.meta_value > '50'`.

 This led to the introduction of the meta query `type` parameter. Provide a
 MySQL data type, and the meta value is cast to that type in the SQL query.

 A default was set to cast the `meta_value` column to `CHAR`. Casting the
 meta value to CHAR is redundant, as the `meta_value` column is `LONGTEXT`,
 which is already a string type.

 Removing this cast in the SQL generated by WP_Query allows users to add an
 index for the meta_value column and have that index considered for use by
 the MySQL optimizer on execution.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/36625>
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