MySQL 的字符集支持(Character Set Support)有兩個方面：字符集(Character set)和排序方式(Collation)。對於字符集的支持細化到四個層次: 服務器(server)，數據庫(database)，數據表(table)和連接(connection)。
查看系統的字符集和排序方式的設定可以通過下面的兩條命令：
mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set_%';
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| character_set_client | latin1 | -- 客戶端字符集
| character_set_connection | latin1 |
| character_set_database | latin1 | -- 數據庫字符集
| character_set_results | latin1 |
| character_set_server | latin1 | -- 服務器字符集
| character_set_system | utf8 |
| character_sets_dir | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
配置/etc/my.cnf文件：（linux 下local爲UTF-8);
找到客戶端配置[client] 在下面添加
default-character-set=utf8 默認字符集爲utf8
在找到[mysqld] 添加
default-character-set=utf8 默認字符集爲utf8
init_connect='SET NAMES utf8' （設定連接mysql數據庫時使用utf8編碼，以讓mysql數據庫爲utf8運行）
再執行：show variables like '%character%';
通過MySQL命令行修改:
mysql> set character_set_client=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_connection=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_database=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_results=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_server=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_system=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> set collation_connection=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> set collation_database=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> set collation_server=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
查看:
mysql> show variables like 'character_set_%';
此方法用於標準mysql版本同樣有效，對於/etc/my.cnf文件，需要從mysql/support-files的文件夾cp my-large.cnf一份到/etc/my.cnf, windows可以直接用Ｍysql Server Instance Config Wizard 進行設置