After you enable a given innodb_file_format, this change applies only to newly created tables rather than existing ones. If you do create a new table, the tablespace containing the table is tagged with the “earliest” or “simplest” file format that is required for the table’s features. For example, if you enable file format “Barracuda”, and create a new table that is not compressed and does not use ROW_FORMAT=DYNAMIC, the new tablespace that contains the table is tagged as using file format “Antelope”.

It is easy to identify the file format used by a given tablespace or table. The table uses the “Barracuda” format if the Row_format reported by SHOW CREATE TABLE or INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES is one of 'Compressed' or 'Dynamic'. (Please note that the Row_format is a separate column, and ignore the contents of the Create_options column, which may contain the string ROW_FORMAT.) If the table in a tablespace uses neither of those features, the file uses the format supported by prior releases of InnoDB, now called file format “Antelope”. Then, the Row_format is one of 'Redundant' or 'Compact'.

The file format identifier is written as part of the tablespace flags (a 32-bit number) in the *.ibd file in the 4 bytes starting at position 54 of the file, most significant byte first. (The first byte of the file is byte zero.) On some systems, you can display these bytes in hexadecimal with the command od -t x1 -j 54 -N 4 tablename.ibd. If all bytes are zero, the tablespace uses the “Antelope” file format (which is the format used by the standard built-in InnoDB in MySQL up to version 5.1). Otherwise, the least significant bit should be set in the tablespace flags, and the file format identifier is written in the bits 5 through 11. (Divide the tablespace flags by 32 and take the remainder after dividing the integer part of the result by 128.)