Question

In MySQL, how to change a variable such as character_set_client?

mysql> show variables like 'character_set%';
-------------------------+-------
character_set_client     | latin1

to obtain

character_set_client     | utf8

Answer 1

When starting MySQL client you have to specify --default-character-set=charset_name

From manual:

       Use charset_name as the default character set for the client and
       connection.

       A common issue that can occur when the operating system uses utf8
       or another multi-byte character set is that output from the mysql
       client is formatted incorrectly, due to the fact that the MySQL
       client uses the latin1 character set by default. You can usually
       fix such issues by using this option to force the client to use the
       system character set instead.

For example:

$>mysql -uUser -pPassword --default-character-set=utf8

For an example of how to set it via connection string see here.