How do I see what character set a MySQL database / table / column is?

Question

What is the (default) charset for: - MySQL database - MySQL table - MySQL column

Answer 1

The character set and collation used for a database, table or column can be viewed with SHOW statements. For a database, use either SHOW CREATE SCHEMA or SHOW CREATE DATABASE. Similarly, use SHOW CREATE TABLE table_name to view character set and collation for the current database engine. Finally, SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM table_name. The 'FULL' option is needed to return character set and collation information.