Default Character Set for a Database
Go Up to Specifying Character Sets
A database’s default character set designation specifies the character set the server uses to tag CHAR, VARCHAR, and text Blob columns in the database when no other character set information is provided. When data is stored in such columns without additional character set information, the server uses the tag to determine how to store and transliterate that data. A default character set should always be specified for a database when it is created with CREATE DATABASE.
To specify a default character set, use the DEFAULT CHARACTER SET clause of CREATE DATABASE. For example, the following statement creates a database that uses the ISO8859_1 character set:
CREATE DATABASE 'europe.ib' DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ISO8859_1;
If you do not specify a character set, the character set defaults to NONE. Using character set
NONE means that there is no character set assumption for columns; data is stored and retrieved just as you originally entered it. You can load any character set into a column defined with NONE, but you cannot later move that data into another column that has been defined with a different character set. In this case, no transliteration is performed between the source and destination character sets, and errors may occur during assignment.For the complete syntax of CREATE DATABASE, see CREATE DATABASE.