1. a set of characters, the character set and validation rules
And the character set is a set of line coding, validation rules (collation) is a set of rules to compare the characters in the character set, i.e. collation character set. MySQL character sets can be used for seed testing rules and organized character.
MySQL server can support multiple character sets, the same server, the same database, even with a different field in the table can specify a different character set, compared to the oracle and other database management systems, can only be used in the same database the same character set, MySQL obviously there is a greater flexibility.
Each character set may have multiple collations, and has a default collation, and each collation is only for a certain character sets and other character sets it has a relationship.
In MySQL, the concept of character sets and coding schemes are seen as a synonym, a character set is a combination of a conversion table and a coding scheme.
2. The character sequence character sequence (Collation): is a set of rules that focus on character comparisons in the specified character, such as whether to ignore case, whether by binary comparison character
3.character the default character set of internal manipulation
4.collation comparison coding rules adopted in the implementation of character