Modifies a database, changing its overall characteristics.

Syntax
------

ALTER {DATABASE | SCHEMA} [db_name]
  alter_specification ...
ALTER {DATABASE | SCHEMA} db_name
  UPGRADE DATA DIRECTORY NAME

alter_specification:
  [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET [=] charset_name
 | [DEFAULT] COLLATE [=] collation_name
 | COMMENT [=] 'comment'

Description
-----------

ALTER DATABASE enables you to change the overall characteristics of a
database. These characteristics are stored in the db.opt file in the database
directory. To use ALTER DATABASE, you need the ALTER privilege on the
database. ALTER SCHEMA is a synonym for ALTER DATABASE.

The CHARACTER SET clause changes the default database character set. The
COLLATE clause changes the default database collation. See Character Sets and
Collations for more.

You can see what character sets and collations are available using,
respectively, the SHOW CHARACTER SET and SHOW COLLATION statements.

Changing the default character set/collation of a database does not change the
character set/collation of any stored procedures or stored functions that were
previously created, and relied on the defaults. These need to be dropped and
recreated in order to apply the character set/collation changes.

The database name can be omitted from the first syntax, in which case the
statement applies to the default database.

The syntax that includes the UPGRADE DATA DIRECTORY NAME clause was added in
MySQL 5.1.23. It updates the name of the directory associated with the
database to use the encoding implemented in MySQL 5.1 for mapping database
names to database directory names (see Identifier to File Name Mapping). This
clause is for use under these conditions:

* It is intended when upgrading MySQL to 5.1 or later from older versions.
* It is intended to update a database directory name to the current encoding
format if the name contains special characters that need encoding.
* The statement is used by mariadb-check (as invoked by mariadb-upgrade).

For example,if a database in MySQL 5.0 has a name of a-b-c, the name contains
instance of the `-' character. In 5.0, the database directory is also named
a-b-c, which is not necessarily safe for all file systems. In MySQL 5.1 and
up, the same database name is encoded as a@002db@002dc to produce a file
system-neutral directory name.

When a MySQL installation is upgraded to MySQL 5.1 or later from an older
version,the server displays a name such as a-b-c (which is in the old format)
as #mysql50#a-b-c, and you must refer to the name using the #mysql50# prefix.
Use UPGRADE DATA DIRECTORY NAME in this case to explicitly tell the server to
re-encode the database directory name to the current encoding format:

ALTER DATABASE `#mysql50#a-b-c` UPGRADE DATA DIRECTORY NAME;

After executing this statement, you can refer to the database as a-b-c without
the special #mysql50# prefix.

COMMENT
-------

MariaDB starting with 10.5.0
----------------------------
From MariaDB 10.5.0, it is possible to add a comment of a maximum of 1024
bytes. If the comment length exceeds this length, a error/warning code 4144 is
thrown. The database comment is also added to the db.opt file, as well as to
the information_schema.schemata table.

Examples
--------

ALTER DATABASE test CHARACTER SET='utf8'  COLLATE='utf8_bin';

From MariaDB 10.5.0:

ALTER DATABASE p COMMENT='Presentations';

URL: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/alter-database/