How do I see what character set a MySQL database / table / column is?

Here's how I'd do it -

For Schemas (or Databases - they are synonyms):

SELECT default_character_set_name FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA 
WHERE schema_name = "schemaname";

For Tables:

SELECT CCSA.character_set_name FROM information_schema.`TABLES` T,
       information_schema.`COLLATION_CHARACTER_SET_APPLICABILITY` CCSA
WHERE CCSA.collation_name = T.table_collation
  AND T.table_schema = "schemaname"
  AND T.table_name = "tablename";

For Columns:

SELECT character_set_name FROM information_schema.`COLUMNS` 
WHERE table_schema = "schemaname"
  AND table_name = "tablename"
  AND column_name = "columnname";

For columns:

SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM table_name;

For databases:

USE your_database_name;
show variables like "character_set_database";
-- or:
-- show variables like "collation_database";

Cf. this page. And check out the MySQL manual

For tables:

SHOW TABLE STATUS will list all the tables.

Filter using:

SHOW TABLE STATUS where name like 'table_123';

To see default collation of the database:

USE db_name;
SELECT @@character_set_database, @@collation_database;

To see collation of the table:

SHOW TABLE STATUS where name like 'table_name';

To see collation of the columns:

SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM table_name;

To see the default character set of a table

SHOW CREATE TABLE table_name;

SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA,
       TABLE_NAME,
       CCSA.CHARACTER_SET_NAME AS DEFAULT_CHAR_SET,
       COLUMN_NAME,
       COLUMN_TYPE,
       C.CHARACTER_SET_NAME
  FROM information_schema.TABLES AS T
  JOIN information_schema.COLUMNS AS C USING (TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME)
  JOIN information_schema.COLLATION_CHARACTER_SET_APPLICABILITY AS CCSA
       ON (T.TABLE_COLLATION = CCSA.COLLATION_NAME)
 WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA=SCHEMA()
   AND C.DATA_TYPE IN ('enum', 'varchar', 'char', 'text', 'mediumtext', 'longtext')
 ORDER BY TABLE_SCHEMA,
          TABLE_NAME,
          COLUMN_NAME
;

I always just look at SHOW CREATE TABLE mydatabase.mytable.

For the database, it appears you need to look at SELECT DEFAULT_CHARACTER_SET_NAME FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA.

For tables and columns:

show create table your_table_name

As many wrote earlier, SHOW FULL COLUMNS should be the preferred method to get column information. What's missing is a way to get charset after that without reaching metadata tables directly:

SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM my_table WHERE Field = 'my_field'
SHOW COLLATION WHERE Collation = 'collation_you_got'

For database : USE db_name; SELECT @@character_set_database;

show global variables where variable_name like 'character_set_%' or variable_name like 'collation%'

When creating a new database, some necessary table will be generated

in "information_schema" this path

"COLUMNS"->about columns

"TABLES"->about table

For example, if you need to see all the column names and types in a table

SELECT COLUMN_NAME,COLUMN_TYPE FROM information_schema.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'your_schema_name' AND TABLE_NAME = 'your_table_name'