Setting Character Encoding in MySQL
The MySQL allows to set the character encoding at different levels, including:
Server Level
we can specify the default character set and collation at the server level in the MySQL configuration file.
You can configure the default server character set and collation in the MySQL configuration file (my.cnf
or my.ini
):
[mysqld]
character-set-server=utf8mb4
collation-server=utf8mb4_unicode_ci
Database Level
Each database in MySQL can have its default character set and collation specified using the statement.
CREATE DATABASE mydatabase CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
Table Level
we can override the database-level character set and collation settings for the individual tables using the CREATE TABLE statement.
CREATE TABLE mytable (
id INT PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci
);
Column Level
The Character encoding can be specified at the column level when defining table columns using the CHARACTER SET keyword.
ALTER TABLE mytable CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
Introduction to MySQL Character Encoding
Character encoding is a fundamental aspect of any database system including MySQL. It determines how characters are represented internally and how they’re stored and processed by the database. In this article, we’ll explore the concept of character encoding in MySQL its importance, and the common encoding schemes used.
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