#### 13.7.7.3 SHOW CHARACTER SET Statement

[]()

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

 The [`SHOW CHARACTER SET`](show-character-set.html) statement shows all available character sets. The [`LIKE`](string-comparison-functions.html#operator_like) clause, if present, indicates which character set names to match. The `WHERE` clause can be given to select rows using more general conditions, as discussed in [Section 26.8, “Extensions to SHOW Statements”](extended-show.html). For example:

```
mysql> SHOW CHARACTER SET LIKE 'latin%';
+---------+-----------------------------+-------------------+--------+
| 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 |
+---------+-----------------------------+-------------------+--------+
```

[`SHOW CHARACTER SET`](show-character-set.html) output has these columns:

* `Charset`

   The character set name.

* `Description`

   A description of the character set.

* `Default collation`

   The default collation for the character set.

* `Maxlen`

   The maximum number of bytes required to store one character.

 The `filename` character set is for internal use only; consequently, [`SHOW CHARACTER SET`](show-character-set.html) does not display it.

 Character set information is also available from the `INFORMATION_SCHEMA` [`CHARACTER_SETS`](information-schema-character-sets-table.html) table. See [Section 26.3.4, “The INFORMATION\_SCHEMA CHARACTER\_SETS Table”](information-schema-character-sets-table.html).

