(mysql.info.gz) Character sets

 
 5.8.1 The Character Set Used for Data and Sorting
 -------------------------------------------------
 
 By default, MySQL uses the ISO-8859-1 (Latin1) character set with
 sorting according to Swedish/Finnish rules. These defaults are suitable
 for the United States and most of western Europe.
 
 All MySQL binary distributions are compiled with
 `--with-extra-charsets=complex'.  This adds code to all standard
 programs that enables them to handle `latin1' and all multi-byte
 character sets within the binary. Other character sets will be loaded
 from a character-set definition file when needed.
 
 The character set determines what characters are allowed in names. It
 also determines how strings are sorted by the `ORDER BY' and `GROUP BY'
 clauses of the `SELECT' statement.
 
 You can change the character set with the `--default-character-set'
 option when you start the server.  The character sets available depend
 on the `--with-charset=CHARSET' and `--with-extra-charsets=
 LIST-OF-CHARSETS | complex | all | none' options to `configure', and the
 character set configuration files listed in `SHAREDIR/charsets/Index'.
  `configure' options configure options.
 
 As of MySQL 4.1.1, you can also change the character set collation with
 the `--default-collation' option when you start the server.  The
 collation must be a legal collation for the default character set.
 (Use the `SHOW COLLATION' statement to determine which collations are
 available for each character set.)   `configure' options
 configure options.
 
 If you change the character set when running MySQL, that may also
 change the sort order.  Consequently, you must run `myisamchk -r -q
 --set-character-set=CHARSET' on all tables, or your indexes may not be
 ordered correctly.
 
 When a client connects to a MySQL server, the server indicates to the
 client what the server's default character set is.  The client will
 switch to use this character set for this connection.
 
 You should use `mysql_real_escape_string()' when escaping strings for
 an SQL query.  `mysql_real_escape_string()' is identical to the old
 `mysql_escape_string()' function, except that it takes the `MYSQL'
 connection handle as the first parameter so that the appropriate
 character set can be taken into account when escaping characters.
 
 If the client is compiled with different paths than where the server is
 installed and the user who configured MySQL didn't include all character
 sets in the MySQL binary, you must tell the client where it can find the
 additional character sets it will need if the server runs with a
 different character set than the client.
 
 You can do this by specifying a `--character-sets-dir' option to
 indicate the path to the directory in which the dynamic MySQL character
 sets are stored. For example, you can put the following in an option
 file:
 
      [client]
      character-sets-dir=/usr/local/mysql/share/mysql/charsets
 
 You can force the client to use specific character set as follows:
 
      [client]
      default-character-set=CHARSET
 
 This is normally unnecessary, however.
(mysql.info.gz) Character sets

Menu
