UNCOMPRESS()
UNCOMPRESS(string)This function returns the uncompressed string corresponding
to the compressed string given, reversing the results of the COMPRESS() function. It requires MySQL to have been
compiled with a compression library (e.g., zlib).
It returns NULL if the string is not compressed or if MySQL wasn’t
compiled with zlib. This function is available as
of version 4.1.1 of MySQL. Here is an example:
SELECT UNCOMPRESS(essay) FROM applications_archive WHERE applicant_id = '1748';