Home / Database Structure / Question No: 198

To create a new database, use the CREATE DATABASE statement. The following statement creates a database named db_name:

CREATE DATABASE db_name;

If you try to create a database that already exists, an error occurs. If you simply want to ensure that the database exists, add an IF NOT EXISTS clause to the statement:

CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS db_name;

The CREATE DATABASE statement has two optional clauses, CHARACTER SET and COLLATE, that assign a default character set and collation for the database. If given, they appear at the end of the statement following the database name. The following statement specifies that the mydb database has a default character set of utf8 and collation of utf8_danish_ci:

CREATE DATABASE mydb CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_danish_ci;

The default character set and collation for the database are used as the defaults for tables created in the database for which no explicit character set or collation of their own are specified. The database defaults are stored in the db.opt file in the database directory.