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9.4.4 Adding a UCA Collation to a Unicode Character Set »
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9.4.3. Adding a Simple Collation to an 8-Bit Character Set

To add a simple collation for an 8-bit character set without recompiling MySQL, use the following procedure. The example adds a collation named latin1_test_ci to the latin1 character set.

  1. Choose a collation ID, as shown in Section 9.4.2, “Choosing a Collation ID”. The following steps use an ID of 56.

  2. You will need to modify the Index.xml and latin1.xml configuration files. These files will be located in the directory named by the character_sets_dir system variable. You can check the variable value as follows, although the path name might be different on your system: 

    mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_sets_dir';
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Variable_name      | Value                                   |
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| character_sets_dir | /user/local/mysql/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------+

  3. Choose a name for the collation and list it in the Index.xml file. Find the <charset> element for the character set to which the collation is being added, and add a <collation> element that indicates the collation name and ID. For example: 

    <charset name="latin1">
  ...
  <!-- associate collation name with its ID -->
  <collation name="latin1_test_ci" id="56"/>
  ...
</charset>

  4. In the latin1.xml configuration file, add a <collation> element that names the collation and that contains a <map> element that defines a character code-to-weight mapping table. Each word within the <map> element must be a number in hexadecimal format. 

    <collation name="latin1_test_ci">
<map>
 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F
 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F
 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F
 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F
 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 5B 5C 5D 5E 5F
 60 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F
 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 7B 7C 7D 7E 7F
 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 8A 8B 8C 8D 8E 8F
 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 9A 9B 9C 9D 9E 9F
 A0 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 AA AB AC AD AE AF
 B0 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 BA BB BC BD BE BF
 41 41 41 41 5B 5D 5B 43 45 45 45 45 49 49 49 49
 44 4E 4F 4F 4F 4F 5C D7 5C 55 55 55 59 59 DE DF
 41 41 41 41 5B 5D 5B 43 45 45 45 45 49 49 49 49
 44 4E 4F 4F 4F 4F 5C F7 5C 55 55 55 59 59 DE FF
</map>
</collation>

  5. Restart the server and use this statement to verify that the collation is present: 

    mysql> SHOW COLLATION LIKE 'latin1_test_ci';
+----------------+---------+----+---------+----------+---------+
| Collation      | Charset | Id | Default | Compiled | Sortlen |
+----------------+---------+----+---------+----------+---------+
| latin1_test_ci | latin1  | 56 |         |          |       1 |
+----------------+---------+----+---------+----------+---------+