MySQL Manual
8 National Character Sets and Unicode in MySQL 4.1
- 8.3 Determining The Default Character Set And Collation
- 8.3.1 Server Character Set and Collation
- 8.3.2 Database Character Set and Collation
- 8.3.3 Table Character Set and Collation
- 8.3.4 Column Character Set and Collation
- 8.3.5 Examples of Character Set and Collation Assignment
- 8.3.6 Connection Character Sets and Collations
- 8.3.7 Character String Literal Character Set and Collation
- 8.3.8
COLLATEClause in Various Parts of an SQL Query - 8.3.9
COLLATEClause Precedence - 8.3.10
BINARYOperator - 8.3.11 Some Special Cases Where the Collation Determination is Tricky
- 8.3.12 Collations Must Be for the Right Character Set
- 8.3.13 An example of the Effect of Collation
8.3.3 Table Character Set and Collation
Every table has a table character set and a table collation, which
may not be null. The CREATE TABLE and ALTER TABLE statements now
have optional clauses for specifying the table character set and
collation:
CREATE TABLE table_name ( column_list ) [CHARACTER SET character_set_name [COLLATE collation_name]] ALTER TABLE table_name [CHARACTER SET character_set_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
Example:
CREATE TABLE t1 ( ... ) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_danish_ci;
MySQL chooses the table character set and collation thus:
- If both
CHARACTER SET XandCOLLATE Ywere specified, then character setXand collationY. - If
CHARACTER SET Xwas specified withoutCOLLATE, then character setXand its default collation. - Otherwise, the database character set and collation.
The table character set and collation are used as default values, if the column character set and collation are not specified in individual column definitions. The table character set and collation are MySQL extensions; there are no such things in standard SQL.
