我的操作系统是fedora 20，安装mysql 时安装的是MariaDB
最初查看数据库编码时，结果如下：
MariaDB [passwd3]> show variables like 'character\_set\_%';
+--------------------------+--------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+--------+
| character_set_client | utf8 |
| character_set_connection | utf8 |
| character_set_database | latin1 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results | utf8 |
| character_set_server | latin1 |
| character_set_system | utf8 |
+--------------------------+--------+
修改配置文件：/etc/my.cnf
[mysqld]
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
# Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks
symbolic-links=0
character_set_server=utf8
log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log
pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
[mysqld_safe]
#
# include all files from the config directory
#
!includedir /etc/my.cnf.d
[mysql]
default-character-set=gbk
我在[mysqld] 节点下添加了：
character_set_server=utf8（ok）
以下是错误的：
default-character-set=utf8（wrong）
在[mysql] （没有该节点的话手动添加）下，增加了：
default-character-set=gbk
修改完编码之后：
MariaDB [(none)]> show variables like 'character\_set\_%';
+--------------------------+--------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+--------+
| character_set_client | gbk |
| character_set_connection | gbk |
| character_set_database | utf8 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results | gbk |
| character_set_server | utf8 |
| character_set_system | utf8 |
+--------------------------+--------+
7 rows in set (0.01 sec)
注意： （1）default-character-set 是 mysql 自己认识的,而 mariadb5.5 就不认识,相当于变成了 character_set_server
（2）查看编码的命令show variables like 'character\_set\_%';