MySQL Tutorial/Information Functions/COLLATION

COLLATION(str) returns the collation of the string argument.

mysql>
mysql> SELECT COLLATION("abc");
+-------------------+
| COLLATION("abc")  |
+-------------------+
| latin1_swedish_ci |
+-------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

SELECT COLLATION(_utf8"abc");

mysql>
mysql>
mysql> SELECT COLLATION(_utf8"abc");
+-----------------------+
| COLLATION(_utf8"abc") |
+-----------------------+
| utf8_general_ci       |
+-----------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)