要更改数据库本身的字符集编码为UTF-8，在mysql>提示符处键入以下命令。将DBNAME替换为数据库名称。

ALTER DATABASE DBNAME CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

对于有大量表的数据库，你可以使用一个简单的php脚本来更新数据库和所有表的字符集，使用以下方法:

$conn = mysqli_connect($host, $username, $password, $database);

if ($conn->connect_error) {
  die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

$alter_database_charset_sql = "ALTER DATABASE ".$database." CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci";
mysqli_query($conn, $alter_database_charset_sql);

$show_tables_result = mysqli_query($conn, "SHOW TABLES");
$tables  = mysqli_fetch_all($show_tables_result);

foreach ($tables as $index => $table) {
  $alter_table_sql = "ALTER TABLE ".$table[0]." CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8  COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci";
  $alter_table_result = mysqli_query($conn, $alter_table_sql);
  echo "<pre>";
  var_dump($alter_table_result);
  echo "</pre>";
}

utf8到utf8mb4:

1.显示所有数据库默认字符集:

SELECT SCHEMA_NAME 'YOUR_DATABASE_NAME', 
default_character_set_name 'charset', 
DEFAULT_COLLATION_NAME 'collation' 
FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA;

2.显示所有表的状态(字符集)，关注列的“collation”:

use YOUR_DATABASE_NAME;    
SHOW TABLE STATUS ;

3.生成转换sql: 转换数据库和所有表utf8mb4,utf8mb4_unicode_ci

USE information_schema;
SELECT CONCAT("ALTER DATABASE `",table_schema,"` CHARACTER SET = utf8mb4 COLLATE = utf8mb4_unicode_ci;") AS _sql
FROM `TABLES` WHERE table_schema LIKE "YOUR_DATABASE_NAME" AND TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE' GROUP BY table_schema UNION
SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE `",table_schema,"`.`",table_name,"` CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;") AS _sql  
FROM `TABLES` WHERE table_schema LIKE "YOUR_DATABASE_NAME" AND TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE' GROUP BY table_schema, TABLE_NAME 
/*include all columns, commonly don't need this.*/
/*
UNION
SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE `",`COLUMNS`.table_schema,"`.`",`COLUMNS`.table_name, "` CHANGE `",column_name,"` `",column_name,"` ",data_type,"(",character_maximum_length,") CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci",IF(is_nullable="YES"," NULL"," NOT NULL"),";") AS _sql 
FROM `COLUMNS` INNER JOIN `TABLES` ON `TABLES`.table_name = `COLUMNS`.table_name WHERE `COLUMNS`.table_schema like "YOUR_DATABASE_NAME" and data_type in ('varchar','char') AND TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE' UNION
SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE `",`COLUMNS`.table_schema,"`.`",`COLUMNS`.table_name, "` CHANGE `",column_name,"` `",column_name,"` ",data_type," CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci",IF(is_nullable="YES"," NULL"," NOT NULL"),";") AS _sql 
FROM `COLUMNS` INNER JOIN `TABLES` ON `TABLES`.table_name = `COLUMNS`.table_name WHERE `COLUMNS`.table_schema like "YOUR_DATABASE_NAME" and data_type in ('text','tinytext','mediumtext','longtext') AND TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE';
*/

4.运行生成的SQL语句。

5.刷新数据库。

6.检查:

SHOW TABLE STATUS ;

你可以创建sql来更新所有的表:

SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE ",TABLE_SCHEMA,".",TABLE_NAME," CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;   ",
    "ALTER TABLE ",TABLE_SCHEMA,".",TABLE_NAME," CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;  ") 
    AS alter_sql
FROM information_schema.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = "your_database_name";

捕获输出并运行它。

阿诺德•丹尼尔斯(Arnold Daniels)的回答更为优雅。

要更改数据库本身的字符集编码为UTF-8，在mysql>提示符处键入以下命令。将DBNAME替换为数据库名称。

ALTER DATABASE DBNAME CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

如果你不能让你的表转换，或者你的表总是设置为一些非utf8字符集，但你想要utf8，你最好的办法可能是擦掉它，重新开始，并显式地指定:

create database database_name character set utf8;