http://database.51cto.com/art/201010/229171.htm

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MySQL字符集多种多样，下面为您列举了其中三种最常见的MySQL字符集查看方法，该方法供您参考，希望对您学习MySQL数据库能有所启迪。

一、查看MySQL数据库服务器和数据库MySQL字符集。

1. mysql> show variables like ‘%char%‘;  
2. +--------------------------+-------------------------------------+------  
3. | Variable_name            | Value                               |......  
4. +--------------------------+-------------------------------------+------  
5. | character_set_client     | utf8                                |......   -- 客户端字符集  
6. | character_set_connection | utf8                                |......  
7. | character_set_database   | utf8                                |......   -- 数据库字符集  
8. | character_set_filesystem | binary                              |......  
9. | character_set_results    | utf8                                |......  
10. | character_set_server     | utf8                                |......   -- 服务器字符集  
11. | character_set_system     | utf8                                |......  
12. | character_sets_dir       | D:\MySQL Server 5.0\share\charsets\ |......  
13. +--------------------------+-------------------------------------+------ 

二、查看MySQL数据表（table）的MySQL字符集。

1. mysql> show table status from sqlstudy_db like ‘%countries%‘;  
2. +-----------+--------+---------+------------+------+-----------------+------  
3. | Name      | Engine | Version | Row_format | Rows | Collation       |......  
4. +-----------+--------+---------+------------+------+-----------------+------  
5. | countries | InnoDB |      10 | Compact    |   11 | utf8_general_ci |......  
6. +-----------+--------+---------+------------+------+-----------------+------ 

三、查看MySQL数据列（column）的MySQL字符集。

1. mysql> show full columns from countries;  
2. +----------------------+-------------+-----------------+--------  
3. | Field                | Type        | Collation       | .......  
4. +----------------------+-------------+-----------------+--------  
5. | countries_id         | int(11)     | NULL            | .......  
6. | countries_name       | varchar(64) | utf8_general_ci | .......  
7. | countries_iso_code_2 | char(2)     | utf8_general_ci | .......  
8. | countries_iso_code_3 | char(3)     | utf8_general_ci | .......  
9. | address_format_id    | int(11)     | NULL            | .......  
10. +----------------------+-------------+-----------------+--------  
11.  

查看三种MySQL字符集的方法(转)