一、登录MySQL查看用SHOW VARIABLES LIKE ‘character%’;下字符集，显示如下：
+--------------------------+----------------------------+ | Variable_name | Value | +--------------------------+----------------------------+ | character_set_client | utf8 | | character_set_connection | utf8 | | character_set_database | latin1 | | character_set_filesystem | binary | | character_set_results | utf8 | | character_set_server | latin1 | | character_set_system | utf8 | | character_sets_dir | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ | +--------------------------+----------------------------+
character_set_database和character_set_server的默认字符集还是latin1。
二、最简单的完美修改方法，修改mysql的my.cnf文件中的字符集键值（注意配置的字段细节）：
1、在[client]字段里加入default-character-set=utf8，如下： [client] port = 3306 socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock default-character-set=utf8 2、在[mysqld]字段里加入character-set-server=utf8，如下： [mysqld] port = 3306 socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock character-set-server=utf8 3、在[mysql]字段里加入default-character-set=utf8，如下： [mysql] #no-auto-rehash default-character-set=utf8
修改完成后，service mysql restart重启mysql服务就生效。注意：[mysqld]字段与[mysql]字段是有区别的。
重启mysql服务。
sudo service mysql start
使用SHOW VARIABLES LIKE ‘character%’;查看，发现数据库编码全已改成utf8。
+--------------------------+----------------------------+ | 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/ | +--------------------------+----------------------------+
原文：http://www.cnblogs.com/calpar/p/3980156.html