- Documentation Library
- Table of Contents
- MySQL 5.5 Manual
- MySQL 5.4 Manual
- MySQL 5.1 Manual
- MySQL 5.0 Manual
- MySQL 3.23/4.0/4.1 Manual
- Table of Contents
- 9.1 Character Set Support
- 9.1.1 Character Sets and Collations in General
- 9.1.2 Character Sets and Collations in MySQL
- 9.1.3 Specifying Character Sets and Collations
- 9.1.3.1 Server Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.2 Database Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.3 Table Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.4 Column Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.5 Character String Literal Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.6 National Character Set
- 9.1.3.7 Examples of Character Set and Collation Assignment
- 9.1.3.8 Compatibility with Other DBMSs
- 9.1.4 Connection Character Sets and Collations
- 9.1.5 Configuring the Character Set and Collation for Applications
- 9.1.6 Character Set for Error Messages
- 9.1.7 Collation Issues
- 9.1.8 Operations Affected by Character Set Support
- 9.1.9 Unicode Support
- 9.1.10 UTF-8 for Metadata
- 9.1.11 Upgrading Character Sets from MySQL 4.0
- 9.1.12 Character Sets and Collations That MySQL Supports
[+/-]
- 9.1.3.1. Server Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.2. Database Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.3. Table Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.4. Column Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.5. Character String Literal Character Set and Collation
- 9.1.3.6. National Character Set
- 9.1.3.7. Examples of Character Set and Collation Assignment
- 9.1.3.8. Compatibility with Other DBMSs
There are default settings for character sets and collations at four levels: server, database, table, and column. The description in the following sections may appear complex, but it has been found in practice that multiple-level defaulting leads to natural and obvious results.
CHARACTER SET is used in clauses that specify
a character set. CHARSET can be used as a
synonym for CHARACTER SET.
Character set issues affect not only data storage, but also
communication between client programs and the MySQL server. If
you want the client program to communicate with the server using
a character set different from the default, you'll need to
indicate which one. For example, to use the
utf8 Unicode character set, issue this
statement after connecting to the server:
SET NAMES 'utf8';
For more information about character set-related issues in client/server communication, see Section 9.1.4, “Connection Character Sets and Collations”.
User Comments
Note that if you specify the same default character set on a lower level but without a default collation, the default collation will be the one of the character set, not the one of the higher level. So this overrides your previous default collation.
Suppose you have specified a default character set for your database, e.g. 'latin1', with a (deviating) default collation ('latin1_bin'). Now you create a table with default character set 'latin1', but no default collation. The default collation of the table will now be the one of the character set ('latin1_swedish_ci'), and not the one you used on the higher level as default collation for the same character set ('latin1_bin'). (Established in MySQL 4.1)
Please add the information about skip-character-set-client-handshake into every page that references server character set and collation.
I'm amazed this startup option is hidden so deep in the documentation, since it seems like many administrators who specify alternate character sets on startup would want the clients to use the server character sets when possible.
Here's an example for the [mysqld] section of your my.cnf:
> skip-character-set-client-handshake
> collation_server=utf8_unicode_ci
> character_set_server=utf8
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