MySQL 的字符集支持(Character Set Support)有两个方面：字符集(Character set)和排序方式(Collation)。对于字符集的支持细化到四个层次: 服务器(server)，数据库(database)，数据表(table)和连接(connection)。

查看系统的字符集和排序方式的设定可以通过下面的两条命令：

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set_%';
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| character_set_client | latin1 | ???????????? -- 客户端字符集
| character_set_connection | latin1 |
| character_set_database | latin1 |??????? -- 数据库字符集
| character_set_results | latin1 |
| character_set_server | latin1 |???????????? -- 服务器字符集
| character_set_system | utf8 |
| character_sets_dir | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
配置/etc/my.cnf文件：（linux 下local为UTF-8);
找到客户端配置[client] 在下面添加
default-character-set=utf8 默认字符集为utf8
在找到[mysqld] 添加
default-character-set=utf8 默认字符集为utf8
init_connect='SET NAMES utf8' （设定连接mysql数据库时使用utf8编码，以让mysql数据库为utf8运行）
再执行：show variables like '%character%';

通过MySQL命令行修改:
mysql> set character_set_client=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_connection=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_database=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_results=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_server=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> set character_set_system=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> set collation_connection=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> set collation_database=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> set collation_server=utf8;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
查看:
mysql> show variables like 'character_set_%';

?

此方法用于标准mysql版本同样有效，对于/etc/my.cnf文件，需要从mysql/support-files的文件夹cp my-large.cnf一份到/etc/my.cnf, windows可以直接用Ｍysql Server Instance Config Wizard 进行设置