Creating mysql table with explicit default character set, what if I don't?
In mysql 5.x Whats the difference if I do something like this: CREATE TABLE aTable ( id BIGINT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, aNumber bigint(20) DEFAULT NULL ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARACTER SET=utf8; with this: CREATE TABLE aTable ( id BIGINT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, aNumber bigint(20) DEFAULT NULL ) ENGINE=InnoDB CHARACTER SET=utf8; Notice I am not specifying the character set as default in the first one. I couldn't find anything in the mysql docs. The word DEFAULT is optional there - so the two are equivalent, i.e. they set the default character set for the table. See the