Suggest VARBINARY for storing IP addresses

[macbre]

• check text columns if they contain IP addresses
• suggest varbinary(16) for storing IPv4/v6 addresses

https://www.designcise.com/web/tutorial/whats-the-best-way-to-store-an-ip-address-in-mysql

To optimize the storage of an IP address (v4 or v6) in a MySQL database consider using VARBINARY data type for the ip storage field as it uses less storage space by storing byte strings rather than character strings. In this article we look at ways to convert a string IP address into its corresponding binary representation that is database storage-ready.

INSERT INTO user_ip (ip) VALUES (INET6_ATON('127.0.0.1'))
SELECT * FROM user_ip WHERE ip = INET6_ATON('127.0.0.1')

The string types are CHAR, VARCHAR, BINARY, VARBINARY, BLOB, TEXT, ENUM, and SET.

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/string-types.html