28.3.6 The INFORMATION_SCHEMA COLLATIONS Table

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

The COLLATIONS table has these columns:

COLLATION_NAME
The collation name.
CHARACTER_SET_NAME
The name of the character set with which the collation is associated.
ID
The collation ID.
IS_DEFAULT
Whether the collation is the default for its character set.
IS_COMPILED
Whether the character set is compiled into the server.
SORTLEN
This is related to the amount of memory required to sort strings expressed in the character set.
PAD_ATTRIBUTE
The collation pad attribute, either NO PAD or PAD SPACE. This attribute affects whether trailing spaces are significant in string comparisons; see Trailing Space Handling in Comparisons.

Collation information is also available from the SHOW COLLATION statement. See Section 15.7.7.4, “SHOW COLLATION Statement”. The following statements are equivalent:

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

SHOW COLLATION
  [LIKE 'wild']