How to convert your MySQL database from default latin1 encoding to UTF8

1.  Step number one, dump your database with mysqldump

mysqldump -u USER -pPASSWORD --default-character-set=latin1 --skip-set-charset mydb > mydb.sql

2. Change encoding at your dump file:

sed -r 's/latin1/utf8/g' mydb.sql > mydb_utf.sql

3. Create new UTF8 database:

mysql -u USER -pPASSWORD --execute="DROP DATABASE mydb; CREATE DATABASE mydb CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;"

4. Final Step. Restore data to new UTF8 database:

mysql -u USER -pPASSWORD --default-character-set=utf8 mydb < mydb_utf.sql

-- vladget