How to convert an entire MySQL database characters

Question

How can I convert entire MySQL database character-set to UTF-8 and collation to UTF-8?

Answer 1

mysqldump -uusername -ppassword -c -e --default-character-set=utf8 --single-transaction --skip-set-charset --add-drop-database -B dbname > dump.sql
cp dump.sql dump-fixed.sql
vim dump-fixed.sql


:%s/DEFAULT CHARACTER SET latin1/DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci/
:%s/DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1/DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8/
:wq

mysql -uusername -ppassword < dump-fixed.sql

Answer 2

DELIMITER $$  

CREATE PROCEDURE `databasename`.`update_char_set`()  

BEGIN  
 DECLARE done INT DEFAULT 0;  
 DECLARE t_sql VARCHAR(256);  
 DECLARE tableName VARCHAR(128);  
 DECLARE lists CURSOR FOR SELECT table_name FROM `information_schema`.`TABLES` WHERE table_schema = 'databasename';  
 DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR SQLSTATE '02000' SET done = 1;  
 OPEN lists;  
 FETCH lists INTO tableName;  
 REPEAT  
    SET @t_sql = CONCAT('ALTER TABLE ', tableName, ' CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci');  
    PREPARE stmt FROM @t_sql;  
    EXECUTE stmt;  
    DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;  
 FETCH lists INTO tableName;  
 UNTIL done END REPEAT;  
 CLOSE lists;  
END$$  

DELIMITER ;  

CALL databasename.update_char_set();

Answer 3

You can create the sql to update all tables with:

SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE ",TABLE_SCHEMA,".",TABLE_NAME," CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;   ",
    "ALTER TABLE ",TABLE_SCHEMA,".",TABLE_NAME," CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;  ") 
    AS alter_sql
FROM information_schema.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = your_database_name;

Capture the output and run it.

Arnold Daniels' answer above is more elegant.

Answer 4

Use the ALTER DATABASE and ALTER TABLE commands.

ALTER DATABASE databasename CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE tablename CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

Or if you're still on MySQL 5.5.2 or older which didn't support 4-byte UTF-8, use utf8 instead of utf8mb4:

ALTER DATABASE databasename CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE tablename CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;

Answer 5

You can also DB tool Navicat, which does it more easier.

• Siva.

Right Click Your Database & select DB Properties & Change as you desired in Drop Down

Answer 6

The only solution that worked for me: http://docs.moodle.org/23/en/Converting_your_MySQL_database_to_UTF8

Converting a database containing tables

mysqldump -uusername -ppassword -c -e --default-character-set=utf8 --single-transaction --skip-set-charset --add-drop-database -B dbname > dump.sql

cp dump.sql dump-fixed.sql
vim dump-fixed.sql

:%s/DEFAULT CHARACTER SET latin1/DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci/
:%s/DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1/DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8/
:wq

mysql -uusername -ppassword < dump-fixed.sql