10.3.6. National Character Set
Standard SQL defines NCHAR or
NATIONAL CHAR as a way to indicate that a
CHAR column should use some predefined
character set. MySQL 5.1 uses
utf8 as this predefined character set. For
example, these data type declarations are equivalent:
CHAR(10) CHARACTER SET utf8
NATIONAL CHARACTER(10)
NCHAR(10)
As are these:
VARCHAR(10) CHARACTER SET utf8
NATIONAL VARCHAR(10)
NCHAR VARCHAR(10)
NATIONAL CHARACTER VARYING(10)
NATIONAL CHAR VARYING(10)
You can use
N'literal' to
create a string in the national character set. These two
statements are equivalent:
SELECT N'some text';
SELECT _utf8'some text';
For information on upgrading character sets to MySQL
5.1 from versions prior to 4.1, see the
MySQL 3.23, 4.0, 4.1 Reference Manual.
