10.3.7 The 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 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)
NVARCHAR(10)
NCHAR VARCHAR(10)
NATIONAL CHARACTER VARYING(10)
NATIONAL CHAR VARYING(10)
You can use N'
(or literal
'n'
) to create a string in the national character set. These statements are equivalent: literal
'
SELECT N'some text';
SELECT n'some text';
SELECT _utf8'some text';