How to automatically convert a MySQL column to lowercase

Question

Is there a property that I can add to a column so that it converts its value to lowercase? Instead of doing it for every single value through PHP?

Answer 1

Yes, but don't do it.

If you want exclusively lowercase characters in a column, convert them when you insert (or update) them.

If you need a column to be case insensitive in comparisons, use a case insensitive collation (which are used by default in e.g. utf8 columns)