Simply put, a character set defines how and which characters are stored to support a particular language or languages. A collation, on the other hand, defines the order used when comparing strings (i.e. the position of any given character within the alphabet of that language)
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Character Set and Collation Overview | Introduction to character sets and collations. |
| Supported Character Sets and Collations | MariaDB supports the following character sets and collations. |
| Setting Character Sets and Collations | Changing from the default character set and collation. |
| Unicode | Unicode support. |
| SHOW CHARACTER SET | Available character sets. |
| SHOW COLLATION | Supported collations. |
| Information Schema CHARACTER_SETS Table | Supported character sets. |
| Information Schema COLLATIONS Table | Supported collations. |
| Internationalization and Localization | Character sets, collations, time zones and locales. |
| SET CHARACTER SET | Maps all strings sent between the current client and the server with the given mapping. |
| SET NAMES | The character set used to send statements to the server, and results back to the client. |
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https://mariadb.com/kb/en/character-sets/