The InnoDB storage engine introduces named file formats to improve compatibility between database file formats and various InnoDB versions.
To create new tables that require a new file format, you must
enable the new “Barracuda” file format, using the configuration
parameter innodb_file_format
. The value of this parameter will
determine whether it will be possible to create a table or index
using compression or the new DYNAMIC
row format. If you omit
innodb_file_format
or set it to “Antelope”, you preclude the
use of new features that would make your database inaccessible to
the built-in InnoDB in MySQL 5.1 and prior releases.
You can set the value of innodb_file_format
on the command line
when you start mysqld
, or in the option file
my.cnf
(Unix operating systems) or
my.ini
(Windows). You can also change it
dynamically with the SET GLOBAL
command.
Further information about managing file formats is presented in Chapter 4, InnoDB File Format Management.
This is the User’s Guide for InnoDB storage engine 1.1 for MySQL 5.5, generated on 2010-04-13 (revision: 19994) .