How do I change the character set for a particular column in MySQL?

The Process

  1. Convert the column to the associated BINARY-type (ALTER TABLE MyTable MODIFY MyColumn BINARY)
  2. Convert the column back to the original type and set the character set to UTF-8 at the same time (ALTER TABLE MyTable MODIFY MyColumn TEXT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci)

What is collate utf8_unicode_ci?

In short: utf8_unicode_ci uses the Unicode Collation Algorithm as defined in the Unicode standards, whereas utf8_general_ci is a more simple sort order which results in “less accurate” sorting results.

How do I find the charset of a table in MySQL?

To see the default character set and collation for a given database, use these statements: USE db_name; SELECT @@character_set_database, @@collation_database; Alternatively, to display the values without changing the default database: SELECT DEFAULT_CHARACTER_SET_NAME, DEFAULT_COLLATION_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.

What is the difference between utf8 and latin1?

what is the difference between utf8 and latin1? They are different encodings (with some characters mapped to common byte sequences, e.g. the ASCII characters and many accented letters). UTF-8 is one encoding of Unicode with all its codepoints; Latin1 encodes less than 256 characters.

What is charset and collation in MySQL?

A character set is a set of symbols and encodings. A collation is a set of rules for comparing characters in a character set. Let’s make the distinction clear with an example of an imaginary character set. Suppose that we have an alphabet with four letters: A , B , a , b .

What is default charset utf8mb4?

From MySQL 8.0, utf8mb4 is the default character set, and the default collation for utf8mb4 is utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci. MySQL 8.0 is also coming with a whole new set of Unicode collations for the utf8mb4 character set. This will allow use of the complete Unicode 9.0.

How do I find the charset of a database?

You can get the character set used in the database by SYS. PROPS$ table or any other views (like database_properties/ nls_database_parameters) exist in the database. The parameter NLS_CHARACTERSET value contains the database character set name.

How do I change utf8 to utf8mb4?

Switching from MySQL’s utf8 to utf8mb4

  1. Step 1: Create a backup.
  2. Step 2: Upgrade the MySQL server.
  3. Step 3: Modify databases, tables, and columns.
  4. Step 4: Check the maximum length of columns and index keys.
  5. Step 5: Modify connection, client, and server character sets.
  6. Step 6: Repair and optimize all tables.