Solution 1:

The answer by phpguy is correct but I think there is a lot of confusion in the additional details there.

The basic answer is in a BLOB data type / attribute domain. BLOB is short for Binary Large Object and that column data type is specific for handling binary data.

See the relevant manual page for MySQL.

Solution 2:

For a table like this:

CREATE TABLE binary_data (
    id INT(4) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    description CHAR(50),
    bin_data LONGBLOB,
    filename CHAR(50),
    filesize CHAR(50),
    filetype CHAR(50)
);

Here is a PHP example:

<?php
    // store.php3 - by Florian Dittmer <[email protected]>
    // Example php script to demonstrate the storing of binary files into
    // an sql database. More information can be found at http://www.phpbuilder.com/
?>

<html>
    <head><title>Store binary data into SQL Database</title></head>

    <body>
        <?php
            // Code that will be executed if the form has been submitted:

            if ($submit) {
                // Connect to the database (you may have to adjust
                // the hostname, username or password).

                mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "password");
                mysql_select_db("binary_data");

                $data = mysql_real_escape_string(fread(fopen($form_data, "r"), filesize($form_data)));

                $result = mysql_query("INSERT INTO binary_data (description, bin_data, filename, filesize, filetype) ".
                                    "VALUES ('$form_description', '$data', '$form_data_name', '$form_data_size', '$form_data_type')");

                $id= mysql_insert_id();
                print "<p>This file has the following Database ID: <b>$id</b>";

                mysql_close();
            } else {

                // else show the form to submit new data:
        ?>
        <form method="post" action="<?php echo $PHP_SELF; ?>" enctype="multipart/form-data">
            File Description:<br>
            <input type="text" name="form_description"  size="40">
            <input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="1000000">
            <br>File to upload/store in database:<br>
            <input type="file" name="form_data"  size="40">
            <p><input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit">
        </form>

        <?php
            }
        ?>
    </body>
</html>