Unicode (utf8mb4) support in MySQL and MariaDB

1. Check the current settings

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MariaDB [(none)]> show variables like "%character%";show variables like "%collation%";
 +--------------------------+---------------------------------+
 | 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/local/mysql/share/charsets/|
 +--------------------------+---------------------------------+

2. sudo vi /etc/my.cnf and edit the following parts

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[client]
default-character-set=utf8mb4

[mysql]
default-character-set=utf8mb4

[mysqld]
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
character-set-server = utf8mb4

3. Restart the service

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service mysql restart

4. Verify

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MariaDB [(none)]> show variables like "%character%";show variables like "%collation%";

+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name            | Value                      |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| character_set_client     | utf8mb4                    |
| character_set_connection | utf8mb4                    |
| character_set_database   | utf8mb4                    |
| character_set_filesystem | binary                     |
| character_set_results    | utf8mb4                    |
| character_set_server     | utf8mb4                    |
| character_set_system     | utf8                       |
| character_sets_dir       | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)

+----------------------+--------------------+
| Variable_name        | Value              |
+----------------------+--------------------+
| collation_connection | utf8mb4_general_ci |
| collation_database   | utf8mb4_unicode_ci |
| collation_server     | utf8mb4_unicode_ci |
+----------------------+--------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Finally, you need to change the type of the actual columns.

Change them to utf8mb4.