SET [NAMES|CHARACTER SET]

The statements SET NAMES, SET CHARACTER SET and SET CHARSET modify the variables character_set_client, character_set_results and character_set_connection for the current connection.

Synopsis

SetNamesStmt:

SetNamesStmt

VariableAssignmentList:

VariableAssignmentList

VariableAssignment:

VariableAssignment

CharsetName:

CharsetName

StringName:

StringName

CharsetKw:

CharsetKw

CharsetNameOrDefault:

CharsetNameOrDefault

Examples

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set%'; +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ | Variable_name | Value | +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ | character_sets_dir | /usr/local/mysql-5.6.25-osx10.8-x86_64/share/charsets/ | | character_set_connection | utf8mb4 | | character_set_system | utf8 | | character_set_results | utf8mb4 | | character_set_client | utf8mb4 | | character_set_database | utf8mb4 | | character_set_filesystem | binary | | character_set_server | utf8mb4 | +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ 8 rows in set (0.01 sec) mysql> SET NAMES utf8; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set%'; +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ | Variable_name | Value | +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ | character_sets_dir | /usr/local/mysql-5.6.25-osx10.8-x86_64/share/charsets/ | | character_set_connection | utf8 | | character_set_system | utf8 | | character_set_results | utf8 | | character_set_client | utf8 | | character_set_server | utf8mb4 | | character_set_database | utf8mb4 | | character_set_filesystem | binary | +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ 8 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> SET CHARACTER SET utf8mb4; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set%'; +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ | Variable_name | Value | +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ | character_set_connection | utf8mb4 | | character_set_system | utf8 | | character_set_results | utf8mb4 | | character_set_client | utf8mb4 | | character_sets_dir | /usr/local/mysql-5.6.25-osx10.8-x86_64/share/charsets/ | | character_set_database | utf8mb4 | | character_set_filesystem | binary | | character_set_server | utf8mb4 | +--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------+ 8 rows in set (0.00 sec)

MySQL compatibility

The SET [NAMES|CHARACTER SET] statement in TiDB is fully compatible with MySQL. If you find any compatibility differences, report a bug.

See also