When there is No Default Character Set

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If you do not specify a default 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 load that same data into another column that has been defined with a different character set. No transliteration will be performed between the source and destination character sets, so in most cases, errors will occur during the attempted assignment.

For example:

CREATE TABLE MYDATA (PART_NUMBER CHARACTER(30) CHARACTER SET NONE);
SET NAMES LATIN1;
INSERT INTO MYDATA (PART_NUMBER) VALUES ('à');
SET NAMES DOS437;
SELECT * FROM MYDATA;

The data (“à”) is returned just as it was entered, without the à being transliterated from the input character (LATIN1) to the output character (DOS437). If the column had been set to anything other than NONE, the transliteration would have occurred.