How do I see what character set a MySQL database / table / column is?

Solution 1:

Here's how I'd do it -

For Schemas (or Databases - they are synonyms):

SELECT default_character_set_name FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA 
WHERE schema_name = "schemaname";

For Tables:

SELECT CCSA.character_set_name FROM information_schema.`TABLES` T,
       information_schema.`COLLATION_CHARACTER_SET_APPLICABILITY` CCSA
WHERE CCSA.collation_name = T.table_collation
  AND T.table_schema = "schemaname"
  AND T.table_name = "tablename";

For Columns:

SELECT character_set_name FROM information_schema.`COLUMNS` 
WHERE table_schema = "schemaname"
  AND table_name = "tablename"
  AND column_name = "columnname";

Solution 2:

For columns:

SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM table_name;

Solution 3:

For databases:

USE your_database_name;
show variables like "character_set_database";
-- or:
-- show variables like "collation_database";

Cf. this page. And check out the MySQL manual

Solution 4:

For all the databases you have on the server:

mysql> SELECT SCHEMA_NAME 'database', default_character_set_name 'charset', DEFAULT_COLLATION_NAME 'collation' FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA;

Output:

+----------------------------+---------+--------------------+
| database                   | charset | collation          |
+----------------------------+---------+--------------------+
| information_schema         | utf8    | utf8_general_ci    |
| my_database                | latin1  | latin1_swedish_ci  |
...
+----------------------------+---------+--------------------+

For a single Database:

mysql> USE my_database;
mysql> show variables like "character_set_database";

Output:

    +----------------------------+---------+
    | Variable_name              |  Value  |
    +----------------------------+---------+
    | character_set_database     |  latin1 | 
    +----------------------------+---------+

Getting the collation for Tables:

mysql> USE my_database;
mysql> SHOW TABLE STATUS WHERE NAME LIKE 'my_tablename';

OR - will output the complete SQL for create table:

mysql> show create table my_tablename

Getting the collation of columns:

mysql> SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM my_tablename;

output:

+---------+--------------+--------------------+ ....
| field   | type         | collation          |
+---------+--------------+--------------------+ ....
| id      | int(10)      | (NULL)             |
| key     | varchar(255) | latin1_swedish_ci  |
| value   | varchar(255) | latin1_swedish_ci  |
+---------+--------------+--------------------+ ....