Database: DB2 V8.1 ESE
newbie question for learning: How do I get a list of all the character sets the current database can be set to, by querying the database (not from documentation).

For example, I can get this info from oracle and sybase databases as follows:
oracle> select value from x$ksulv where parameter='CHARACTERSET';
sybase> select name from master..syscharsets

Is there a similar way to do it in DB2 also?

The DB2 database character set is defined at the database creation time and cannot be changed afterwards. To see with what character set the database has been created use "get db cfg for <db name>"