How do I make MySQL handle UTF-8?
Daniel Rodriguez
Published Feb 24, 2026
How do I make MySQL handle UTF-8?
14 Answers
- use SET NAMES utf8 before you query/insert into the database.
- use DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 when creating new tables.
- at this point your MySQL client and server should be in UTF-8 (see my. cnf ). remember any languages you use (such as PHP) must be UTF-8 as well.
Can UTF-8 handle special characters?
Since ASCII bytes do not occur when encoding non-ASCII code points into UTF-8, UTF-8 is safe to use within most programming and document languages that interpret certain ASCII characters in a special way, such as / (slash) in filenames, \ (backslash) in escape sequences, and % in printf.
What is UTF-8 in MySQL?
In short: MySQL’s “utf8mb4” means “UTF-8”. MySQL’s “utf8” means “a proprietary character encoding”. This encoding can’t encode many Unicode characters.
What is the difference between utf8_general_ci and utf8_unicode_ci?
Key differences utf8mb4_unicode_ci is based on the official Unicode rules for universal sorting and comparison, which sorts accurately in a wide range of languages. utf8mb4_general_ci is a simplified set of sorting rules which aims to do as well as it can while taking many short-cuts designed to improve speed.
What is charset utf8mb4?
utf8mb4 : A UTF-8 encoding of the Unicode character set using one to four bytes per character. utf8mb3 : A UTF-8 encoding of the Unicode character set using one to three bytes per character.
How big is UTF-8?
8 bits
General questions, relating to UTF or Encoding Form
| Name | UTF-8 | UTF-32BE |
|---|---|---|
| Code unit size | 8 bits | 32 bits |
| Byte order | N/A | big-endian |
| Fewest bytes per character | 1 | 4 |
| Most bytes per character | 4 | 4 |
What is difference between UTF-8 and ASCII?
UTF-8 encodes Unicode characters into a sequence of 8-bit bytes. By comparison, ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) includes 128 character codes. Eight-bit extensions of ASCII, (such as the commonly used Windows-ANSI codepage 1252 or ISO 8859-1 “Latin -1”) contain a maximum of 256 characters.
What is the difference between utf8 and utf8mb4?
The difference between utf8 and utf8mb4 is that the former can only store 3 byte characters, while the latter can store 4 byte characters. In Unicode terms, utf8 can only store characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane, while utf8mb4 can store any Unicode character. utf8mb4 is 100% backwards compatible with utf8.
How to store UTF8 characters in MySQL?
Here are the steps to store UTF8 characters in MySQL. By default, MySQL supports only ASCII characters and stores data in latin1 character set. 1. Check Character Set Open terminal and run the following command replacing username below with your database username
How to convert output of MySQL Query to UTF8?
Here is the syntax to convert output of MySQL query to UTF8: SELECT yourColumnName1,convert (yourColumnName2 USING utf8) as anyVariableName FROM yourTableName; You can use another syntax which is as follows: SELECT yourColumnName1,CONVERT (CAST (yourColumnName2 as BINARY) USING utf8) as anyVariableName FROM yourTableName;
How to avoid warning of aliases when using UTF8 in MySQL?
In this if you use utf8 then you will get warning of aliases because it has utf8mb4. Therefore, you can avoid the warning by placing utf8mb4. Note: Never use UTF8. For current versions, use UTF8MB4 Here is the syntax to convert output of MySQL query to UTF8: You can use another syntax which is as follows:
How to list the character set supported by MySQL?
By default, MySQL supports only ASCII characters and stores data in latin1 character set. 1. Check Character Set Open terminal and run the following command replacing username below with your database username You will see a password prompt. Enter password and log into MySQL. Run the following command to list the character set