character set

file --mime-encoding 'ficheiro.ext'

verificar collation e charset aqui

modificar o default collation da base de dados:

SELECT DISTINCT concat('ALTER DATABASE ', TABLE_SCHEMA, ' CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;') from information_schema.tables where TABLE_SCHEMA like 'database_name';

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5906585/how-to-change-the-default-collation-of-a-database

modificar o default charset e collation de todas as tabelas na base de dados:

To discover the character set and collation of a database, just

USE your_database_of_interest;

and type,

show variables like "character_set_database";
show variables like "collation_database";

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-database.html