MySQL5 character set

All you need to edit my.cnf in order not to write the command like "set name xxx" everytime you restart the service.

[client]
default-character-set = utf8

[mysqld]
skip-character-set-client-handshake
default-character-set = utf8
character-set-server = utf8
collation-server = utf8_general_ci
init-connect = SET NAMES utf8

[mysqldump]
default-character-set = utf8

[mysql]
default-character-set = utf8

In order to check the charset

mysql> shwo variables like 'char%';
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| 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     | utf8                       |
| character_set_system     | utf8                       |
| character_sets_dir       | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+

#Then set charset
mysql>set character_set_database=utf8
mysql> show variables like 'char%';
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| 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/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+