Re: Backing up UTF-8 content using mysqldump

[Thomas Taylor]

I, too, have had issues dealing with UTF-8 content in MySQL. However, I have been able to use the MySQL Command-Line Client to correctly run UTF-8 SQL scripts.

Using MySQLDump, make sure to use the '-r <filename>' option, instead of redirecting command-line output to a file ('> <filename>'). Redirection does not capture UTF characters properly, while the -r option does.
Example:
>mysqldump -r dbdump.sql

Using MySQL, source the sql script.
Example:
MySQL>source dbdump.sql

I have seen some issues when programs like Notepad or Wordpad have edited the SQL script between the dump and source.