Does empty text occupy space in database

Question

Does empty text(type) occupy space in database ? One column of database table is merely used, if data is inserted in this column, the size will be no more than 2 digit integer. First-fall, I set int(2) for this column, but it kept 0 value even if it is empty. No matter how much, but space is occupied even there is 0 value. Am I right ? So I switch int to text thinking that text field would be empty if no data is inserted. Is my assumption right ? Does empty text occupy space ?

Answer 1

Blank space will take minimal space : i) one bit in the NULL bitmap ii) two bytes for length (which will be zero when NULL.