[Koha] configuring mysql for default utf8 support in koha

[H.S.]

Hello,

Just sharing my experience here. To configure mysql to support utf8 as
default,
init-connect='SET NAMES utf8'
character-set-server=utf8
collation-server=utf8_general_ci
character_set_client=utf8

With these, I get these as variables in mysql:
mysql> show variables like "char%";
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name            | Value                      |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| character_set_client     | latin1                     |
| character_set_connection | latin1                     |
| character_set_database   | utf8                       |
| character_set_filesystem | binary                     |
| character_set_results    | latin1                     |
| character_set_server     | utf8                       |
| character_set_system     | utf8                       |
| character_sets_dir       | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)


Further I added the following lines in /etc/mysql/my.cnf (in the
respective stanzas as shown below):
[client]
default-character-set=utf8
[mysql]
default-character-set=utf8
[mysqld_safe]
default-character-set=utf8
[mysqld]
default-character-set=utf8

and restarted mysql. I then got the following set variables in mysql (as
root):
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/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
8 rows in set (0.01 sec)


So looks like specifying the default char sets helped. If others have
insights in to this, please share. I am not experienced in mysql so I do
not know all the details about the factors affecting char sets in mysql
in various situations.

Thanks.

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