On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 7:24 AM, Paul DuBois <paul@mysql.com> wrote:
>
> > When you create a table, you can specify a character set for a column. How
> > can you tell what character set was used when the column was created?
> >
>
> SHOW CREATE TABLE. If no character set is shown for the column,
> it uses the table default character set.
>
> Example:
>
> mysql> create table t (c1 char(5) character set utf8, c2 char(5));
> Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.16 sec)
>
> mysql> show create table t\G
> *************************** 1. row ***************************
> Table: t
> Create Table: CREATE TABLE `t` (
> `c1` char(5) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
> `c2` char(5) DEFAULT NULL
> ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
> 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
>
> The definition for c1 shows that utf8 is used
>
> The definition for c2 shows nothing, so the table character set (latin1)
> is used.
>
> --
> Paul DuBois, MySQL Documentation Team
> Madison, Wisconsin, USA
> MySQL AB, www.mysql.com

Is there any reason that the information_schema would not be the
preferred method of finding this information?
mysql> select table_collation from tables WHERE `table_name` =
'mytable' AND table_schema ='mydatabase'\G


--
Rob Wultsch
wultsch@gmail.com
wultsch (aim)