In MariaDB, you can use the SHOW CHARACTER SET administrative SQL statement to return all available character sets in MariaDB.

Syntax

The syntax goes like this:

SHOW CHARACTER SET [LIKE 'pattern' | WHERE expr]

You can use the optional LIKE and/or WHERE clauses to narrow down the results.

Examples

Here are some examples to demonstrate.

The LIKE Clause

Here’s an example that uses the LIKE clause to return all character sets that start with latin:

SHOW CHARACTER SET LIKE 'latin%';

Result:

+---------+-----------------------------+-------------------+--------+
| Charset | Description                 | Default collation | Maxlen |
+---------+-----------------------------+-------------------+--------+
| latin1  | cp1252 West European        | latin1_swedish_ci |      1 |
| latin2  | ISO 8859-2 Central European | latin2_general_ci |      1 |
| latin5  | ISO 8859-9 Turkish          | latin5_turkish_ci |      1 |
| latin7  | ISO 8859-13 Baltic          | latin7_general_ci |      1 |
+---------+-----------------------------+-------------------+--------+

The WHERE Clause

Here’s an example that uses the WHERE clause to return all character sets with a Maxlen of 3:

SHOW CHARACTER SET WHERE Maxlen LIKE '3';

Result:

+---------+---------------------------+---------------------+--------+
| Charset | Description               | Default collation   | Maxlen |
+---------+---------------------------+---------------------+--------+
| ujis    | EUC-JP Japanese           | ujis_japanese_ci    |      3 |
| utf8    | UTF-8 Unicode             | utf8_general_ci     |      3 |
| eucjpms | UJIS for Windows Japanese | eucjpms_japanese_ci |      3 |
+---------+---------------------------+---------------------+--------+

The AND and OR Keywords

We can combine conditions with the AND and/or OR keywords:

SHOW CHARACTER SET 
WHERE Maxlen LIKE '3'
OR Description LIKE '%Japanese%';

Result:

+---------+---------------------------+---------------------+--------+
| Charset | Description               | Default collation   | Maxlen |
+---------+---------------------------+---------------------+--------+
| ujis    | EUC-JP Japanese           | ujis_japanese_ci    |      3 |
| sjis    | Shift-JIS Japanese        | sjis_japanese_ci    |      2 |
| utf8    | UTF-8 Unicode             | utf8_general_ci     |      3 |
| cp932   | SJIS for Windows Japanese | cp932_japanese_ci   |      2 |
| eucjpms | UJIS for Windows Japanese | eucjpms_japanese_ci |      3 |
+---------+---------------------------+---------------------+--------+

Return All Character Sets

To return all character sets, simply remove all clauses:

SHOW CHARACTER SET;

Result:

+----------+-----------------------------+---------------------+--------+
| Charset  | Description                 | Default collation   | Maxlen |
+----------+-----------------------------+---------------------+--------+
| big5     | Big5 Traditional Chinese    | big5_chinese_ci     |      2 |
| dec8     | DEC West European           | dec8_swedish_ci     |      1 |
| cp850    | DOS West European           | cp850_general_ci    |      1 |
| hp8      | HP West European            | hp8_english_ci      |      1 |
| koi8r    | KOI8-R Relcom Russian       | koi8r_general_ci    |      1 |
| latin1   | cp1252 West European        | latin1_swedish_ci   |      1 |
| latin2   | ISO 8859-2 Central European | latin2_general_ci   |      1 |
| swe7     | 7bit Swedish                | swe7_swedish_ci     |      1 |
| ascii    | US ASCII                    | ascii_general_ci    |      1 |
| ujis     | EUC-JP Japanese             | ujis_japanese_ci    |      3 |
| sjis     | Shift-JIS Japanese          | sjis_japanese_ci    |      2 |
| hebrew   | ISO 8859-8 Hebrew           | hebrew_general_ci   |      1 |
| tis620   | TIS620 Thai                 | tis620_thai_ci      |      1 |
| euckr    | EUC-KR Korean               | euckr_korean_ci     |      2 |
| koi8u    | KOI8-U Ukrainian            | koi8u_general_ci    |      1 |
| gb2312   | GB2312 Simplified Chinese   | gb2312_chinese_ci   |      2 |
| greek    | ISO 8859-7 Greek            | greek_general_ci    |      1 |
| cp1250   | Windows Central European    | cp1250_general_ci   |      1 |
| gbk      | GBK Simplified Chinese      | gbk_chinese_ci      |      2 |
| latin5   | ISO 8859-9 Turkish          | latin5_turkish_ci   |      1 |
| armscii8 | ARMSCII-8 Armenian          | armscii8_general_ci |      1 |
| utf8     | UTF-8 Unicode               | utf8_general_ci     |      3 |
| ucs2     | UCS-2 Unicode               | ucs2_general_ci     |      2 |
| cp866    | DOS Russian                 | cp866_general_ci    |      1 |
| keybcs2  | DOS Kamenicky Czech-Slovak  | keybcs2_general_ci  |      1 |
| macce    | Mac Central European        | macce_general_ci    |      1 |
| macroman | Mac West European           | macroman_general_ci |      1 |
| cp852    | DOS Central European        | cp852_general_ci    |      1 |
| latin7   | ISO 8859-13 Baltic          | latin7_general_ci   |      1 |
| utf8mb4  | UTF-8 Unicode               | utf8mb4_general_ci  |      4 |
| cp1251   | Windows Cyrillic            | cp1251_general_ci   |      1 |
| utf16    | UTF-16 Unicode              | utf16_general_ci    |      4 |
| utf16le  | UTF-16LE Unicode            | utf16le_general_ci  |      4 |
| cp1256   | Windows Arabic              | cp1256_general_ci   |      1 |
| cp1257   | Windows Baltic              | cp1257_general_ci   |      1 |
| utf32    | UTF-32 Unicode              | utf32_general_ci    |      4 |
| binary   | Binary pseudo charset       | binary              |      1 |
| geostd8  | GEOSTD8 Georgian            | geostd8_general_ci  |      1 |
| cp932    | SJIS for Windows Japanese   | cp932_japanese_ci   |      2 |
| eucjpms  | UJIS for Windows Japanese   | eucjpms_japanese_ci |      3 |
+----------+-----------------------------+---------------------+--------+
40 rows in set (0.001 sec)