The INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLLATIONS Table : INFORMATION_SCHEMA « Data Dictionary « MySQL Tutorial

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The COLLATIONS table provides information about collations for each character set.

mysql>
mysql> desc INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLLATIONS;
+--------------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field              | Type        | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| COLLATION_NAME     | varchar(64) | NO   |     |         |       |
| CHARACTER_SET_NAME | varchar(64) | NO   |     |         |       |
| ID                 | bigint(11)  | NO   |     | 0       |       |
| IS_DEFAULT         | varchar(3)  | NO   |     |         |       |
| IS_COMPILED        | varchar(3)  | NO   |     |         |       |
| SORTLEN            | bigint(3)   | NO   |     | 0       |       |
+--------------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

The following statements are equivalent:

SELECT COLLATION_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLLATIONS
  [WHERE collation_name LIKE 'wild']

SHOW COLLATION
  [LIKE 'wild']