Should You Use "SET NAMES" for Character Encoding in MySQL?

Managing Character Encodings in MySQL: To "SET NAMES" or Not

The recommendation against using "SET NAMES" in MySQL, highlighted in "High Performance MySQL," raises questions about best practices for ensuring Unicode-aware database workflows.

To clarify, "SET NAMES" sets the character set used on the server side only, not in the client library. This implies that executing "SET NAMES UTF8" in PHP or Python scripts will not affect how Unicode characters are handled by the client libraries.

Recommended Practices:

Rather than relying on "SET NAMES," consider the following approaches:

• Use MySQL API Functions:

  • mysql_set_charset(), mysqli_set_charset() (for PHP)
  • PDO::mysql with the charset connection parameter (for both PHP and Python)

These functions execute MySQL API calls, which are faster than issuing a query.

• Configure MySQL Server Settings:

  • Set the following variables in my.ini/cnf:

    • character_set_client
    • character_set_results
    • character_set_connection

This approach ensures a system-wide UTF-8-based communication between the server and clients.

Note:

• Modifying server settings may affect applications requiring different character sets.
• When using PHP's mysql_set_charset(), remember that it applies only to mysqli and not PDO::mysql.

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