Re: good default character set for "english-only" data

[Shuichi Tamagawa]

It depends on which you prefer about case sensitivity and sort order.

See the example below and chose what you prefer:

mysql> select col from t where col = 'a' collate latin1_swedish_ci;
+------+
| col |
+------+
| a |
| A |
+------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select col from t where col = 'a' collate latin1_bin;
+------+
| col |
+------+
| a |
+------+
1 row in set (0.06 sec)

mysql> select * from t order by col collate latin1_swedish_ci;
+------+
| col |
+------+
| a |
| A |
| b |
| B |
| c |
| C |
+------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from t order by col collate latin1_bin;
+------+
| col |
+------+
| A |
| B |
| C |
| a |
| b |
| c |
+------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Note:
You don't need 'collate' clause if you set the collation as default collation.