MySQL COLLATION() Function

MySQL COLLATION() function returns the collation of the specified string.

COLLATION() Syntax

Here is the syntax of the MySQL COLLATION() function:

COLLATION(str)

Parameters

str

Required. A text string.

Return value

The COLLATION() function returns the collation of the specified string.

The COLLATION() function will return NULL if the argument is binary.

COLLATION() Examples

The following example shows how to use the COLLATION() function to get the collation of a string parameter.

SELECT COLLATION('hello');

+--------------------+
| COLLATION('hello') |
+--------------------+
| utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci |
+--------------------+

Let’s look at an example:

SELECT COLLATION(CONVERT('hello' USING latin1));

+------------------------------------------+
| COLLATION(CONVERT('hello' USING latin1)) |
+------------------------------------------+
| latin1_swedish_ci                        |
+------------------------------------------+

Here, we use the CONVERT() function to convert the collation of the string 'hello' to latin1 first, and then use the COLLATION() function to get the collation of the converted string.

The COLLATION() function will return NULL if the argument is binary.

SELECT COLLATION(NULL);

+-----------------+
| COLLATION(NULL) |
+-----------------+
| binary          |
+-----------------+