Does capitalization matter in MySQL?

Question

I can't find a reference about which part of a MySQL query is case sensitive.

Is there an overview of where capitalization matters?

Specifically, are any of these case sensitive:

• database name
• table name
• column name

Is it tied to the OS? Configurable? Or some other combination of factors?

Answer 1

In MySQL, databases correspond to directories within the data directory. Each table within a database corresponds to at least one file within the database directory (and possibly more, depending on the storage engine). Consequently, the case sensitivity of the underlying operating system plays a part in the case sensitivity of database and table names. This means database and table names are not case sensitive in Windows, and case sensitive in most varieties of Unix.

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The lower_case_table_names system variable also affects how the server handles identifier case sensitivity

You can read more about the topic here.

Answer 2

It depends on the collation. For example if your table has unicode_general_ci, it'll support general unicode character recognizing algorithm and it'll be case-*in*sensitive.