With MySQL,  physical backups  are performed by the  MySQL Enterprise Backup  product, and  logical backups  are performed by the  mysqldump  command. These techniques have different characteristics in terms of size and representation of the backup data, and speed (especially speed of the restore operation). Backups are further classified as  hot ,  warm , or  cold  depending on how much they interfere with normal database operation. (Hot backups have the least interference, cold backups the most.) See Also cold backup, hot backup, logical backup, MySQL Enterprise Backup, mysqldump, physical backup, warm backup.  A non-generated table column upon which a stored generated column or virtual generated column is based. In other words, a base column is a non-generated table column that is part of a generated column definition. See Also generated column, stored generated column, virtual generated column. base column beta  An early stage in the life of a software product, when it is available only for evaluation, typically without a definite release number or a number less than 1.  InnoDB  does not use the beta designation, preferring an  early adopter phase that can extend over several point releases, leading to a  GA  release. See Also early adopter, GA. binary log  A file containing a record of all statements or row changes that attempt to change table data. The contents of the binary log can be replayed to bring replicas up to date in a  replication  scenario, or to bring a database up to date after restoring table data from a backup. The binary logging feature can be turned on and off, although Oracle recommends always enabling it if you use replication or perform backups. You can examine the contents of the binary log, or replay it during replication or recovery, by using the mysqlbinlog  command. For full information about the binary log, see Section 5.4.4, “The Binary Log” . For MySQL configuration options related to the binary log, see Section 17.1.6.4, “Binary Logging Options and Variables” . For the  MySQL Enterprise Backup  product, the file name of the binary log and the current position within the file are important details. To record this information for the source when taking a backup in a replication context, you can specify the  --slave-info  option. Prior to MySQL 5.0, a similar capability was available, known as the update log. In MySQL 5.0 and higher, the binary log replaces the update log. See Also binlog, MySQL Enterprise Backup, replication. binlog  An informal name for the  binary log  file. For example, you might see this abbreviation used in e-mail messages or forum discussions. See Also binary log.  A special mode of  full-text search  enabled by the  WITH QUERY EXPANSION  clause. It performs the search twice, where the search phrase for the second search is the original search phrase concatenated with the few most highly relevant documents from the first search. This technique is mainly applicable for short search phrases, perhaps only a single word. It can uncover relevant matches where the precise search term does not occur in the document. See Also full-text search. blind query expansion BLOB 6135  An SQL data type ( TINYBLOB ,  BLOB ,  MEDIUMBLOB , and  LONGBLOB ) for objects containing any kind of binary data, of arbitrary size. Used for storing documents, images, sound files, and other kinds of information that cannot