I was exporting a Mysql database from a 4.1.x build to a 3.x build on another machine. When importing, I was getting the message

“ERROR 1064 at line 20: You have an error in your SQL syntax near ‘DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1′ at line 6″

Line 6 of my exported database .sql file was

) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

If I delete the DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 portion, it still has an error about the ENGINE=MyISAM portion. Mysql 4.0.x or 3.x were expecting instead

) TYPE=MyISAM;

I initially thought to look in the configuration files to change the post-table output, but couldn’t find anything. I then tried looking for a table-output-template, but wasn’t successful there either. I eventually just uninstalled 4.1.x and installed 4.0.x so that I wouldn’t have to worry about compatibility.

How annoying…

Edit 9/13:
You may or may not have to delete /var/db prior to reinstalling… if I did not I got an error something similar to

/usr/local/libexec/mysqld: Can’t open file: ‘host.MYI’. (errno: 142)
Fatal error: Can’t open privelege tables: File ‘/usr/local/share/mysql/charsets/?.conf’ not found (Errcode: 2)
Aborting

Also, if you use PHP or anything else that depends on the mysql build, you’ll of course have to rebuild those (including php4-mysql which is managed by php4-extensions). I had quite a hassle with my mysql.so file from php4-mysql… maybe you won’t, maybe you will.