In order to change the default character set in MySQL follow the given steps:
First login to the server as root
Open the file /etc/my.cnf
vi /etc/my.cnf
Add the following lines below [client] section:
default-character-set=utf8
Add the following lines below [mysqld] section:
default-character-set=utf8 init_connect=’SET NAMES utf8′
Once done restart your mysql service.
service mysql restart
Now check with the following command:
mysql Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 1554730 Server version: 5.0.91-community MySQL Community Edition (GPL) Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the current input statement. mysql> show variables like ‘char%'; +————————–+—————————-+ | Variable_name | Value | +————————–+—————————-+ | character_set_client | utf8 | | character_set_connection | utf8 | | character_set_database | utf8 | | character_set_filesystem | binary | | character_set_results | utf8 | | character_set_server | utf8 | | character_set_system | utf8 | | character_sets_dir | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ +————————–+—————————-+ 8 rows in set (0.00 sec)
mysql>quit
Now you can see the default charset set to utf8.