SET NAMES

Purpose

You can use this statement to set the character set and the collation for the current session.

Syntax

SET NAMES 'charset_name' [COLLATE 'collation_name'];

Parameters

Note

You can execute SHOW CHARSET; to query the character sets supported by the system, and execute SHOW COLLATION; to query the collations supported by the system.

Examples

• Set the character set of the current session to gbk, and retain the default collation.

  obclient> SET NAMES 'gbk';
  Query OK, 0 rows affected
  
  obclient> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set_c%';
  +--------------------------+-------+
   VARIABLE_NAME             VALUE 
  +--------------------------+-------+
   character_set_client      gbk   
   character_set_connection  gbk   
  +--------------------------+-------+
  2 rows in set
  
  obclient> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'collation_connection';
  +----------------------+----------------+
   VARIABLE_NAME         VALUE          
  +----------------------+----------------+
   collation_connection  gbk_chinese_ci 
  +----------------------+----------------+
  1 row in set
  

• Set the character set to utf8mb4 and the collation to utf8mb4_general_ci for the current session.

  obclient> SET NAMES 'utf8mb4' COLLATE 'utf8mb4_general_ci';
  Query OK, 0 rows affected
  
  obclient> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set_c%';
  +--------------------------+---------+
   VARIABLE_NAME             VALUE   
  +--------------------------+---------+
   character_set_client      utf8mb4 
   character_set_connection  utf8mb4 
  +--------------------------+---------+
  2 rows in set
  
  obclient> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'collation_connection';
  +----------------------+--------------------+
   VARIABLE_NAME         VALUE              
  +----------------------+--------------------+
   collation_connection  utf8mb4_general_ci 
  +----------------------+--------------------+
  1 row in set