# Forcing MySQL table charset to UTF-8

**URL:** <https://community.cdata.com/t/forcing-mysql-table-charset-to-utf-8/827>\
**Category:** CData Virtuality \[Archived\]\
**Tags:** article, cdata-virtuality\
**Created:** [July 12, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://community.cdata.com/t/forcing-mysql-table-charset-to-utf-8/827 "2024-07-12T16:18:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![anonymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@anonymous](https://community.cdata.com/u/anonymous)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://community.cdata.com/t/forcing-mysql-table-charset-to-utf-8/827/1 "2024-07-12T16:18:40Z")

</div>

When creating tables in MySQL through Data Virtuality (e.g. when using MySQL as analytical storage) the charset of newly created tables will depend on the locale of your Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

In some cases, this may not be UTF-8 but you still want to create tables in MySQL using UTF-8. To do so, you may override the locale by editing your MySQL data source and set JDBC parameters to&nbsp;_characterEncoding=UTF-8&useUnicode=true_.

 ![mysql_utf8.png](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/cdata/original/2X/a/a760507fdb694bfd18f9cf89fc94dc7410d413f3.png)