Comments - CREATE TABLE

The problem seems to only occur when also specifying a default value; CHARSET must be specified before any DEFAULT value:

Not quite MySQL compatible.

In column_definition specified above CHARSET is a part of data_type, this is why it should go before the default value; and it works exactly the same way in MySQL:

mysql> CREATE TABLE foo2 (id varchar(120) DEFAULT 'bar' CHARSET utf8);
ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server
 version for the right syntax to use near 'CHARSET utf8)' at line 1

mysql> CREATE TABLE foo2 (id varchar(120) CHARSET utf8 DEFAULT 'bar');
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.05 sec)

mysql> select @@version, @@version_comment;
+-----------+------------------------------+
| @@version | @@version_comment            |
+-----------+------------------------------+
| 5.5.29    | MySQL Community Server (GPL) |
+-----------+------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

My apologies, it does seem to work the same in MySQL.

I've noticed that many SQL beginners lose much time on syntax errors, before understanding that the clauses must always follow exactly the correct order.