Every table has a table character set and a table collation. The
CREATE TABLE
and
ALTER TABLE
statements have
optional clauses for specifying the table character set and
collation:
CREATE TABLE tbl_name (column_list)
[[DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name]
[COLLATE collation_name]]
ALTER TABLE tbl_name
[[DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name]
[COLLATE collation_name]
Example:
CREATE TABLE t1 ( ... )
CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_danish_ci;
MySQL chooses the table character set and collation in the following manner:
If both
CHARACTER SET
andcharset_name
COLLATE
are specified, character setcollation_name
charset_name
and collationcollation_name
are used.If
CHARACTER SET
is specified withoutcharset_name
COLLATE
, character setcharset_name
and its default collation are used. To see the default collation for each character set, use theSHOW CHARACTER SET
statement or query theINFORMATION_SCHEMA
CHARACTER_SETS
table.If
COLLATE
is specified withoutcollation_name
CHARACTER SET
, the character set associated withcollation_name
and collationcollation_name
are used.Otherwise (neither
CHARACTER SET
norCOLLATE
is specified), the database character set and collation are used.
The table character set and collation are used as default values for column definitions 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.