Table of Contents
Improved handling of character sets is one of the features added to MySQL in Version 4.1. This chapter explains:
What are character sets and collations
The multi-level default system
New syntax in MySQL 4.1
Affected functions and operations
The meaning of each individual character set and collation
The features described here are as implemented in MySQL 4.1.1. (MySQL 4.1.0 has some but not all of these features, and some of them are implemented differently.)
Character set support currently is included in the MySISAM and MEMORY (HEAP) storage engines. The InnoDB storage engine does not yet include it. ISAM does not; there are no plans to do so.