MySQL Convert latin1 data to UTF8

Question

I imported some data using LOAD DATA INFILE into a MySQL Database. The table itself and the columns are using the UTF8 character set, but the default character set of the d

Answer 1

Converting latin1 to UTF8 is not what you want to do, you kind of need the opposite.

If what really happened was this:

1. UTF-8 strings were interpreted as Latin-1 and transcoded to UTF-8, mangling them.
2. You are now, or could be, reading UTF-8 strings with no further interpretation

What you must do now is:

1. Read the "UTF-8" with no transcode.
2. Convert it to Latin-1. Now you should actually have the original UTF-8.
3. Now put it in your "UTF-8" column with no further conversion.