Collation convert existing data

[siteox]

I have a database that was created using the iso-8859-1 charset, several years ago. It contains years worth of data. I now need to convert it to utf-8. Does the Phoca Changing Collation Tool convert the existing data, within the database, or is it just changing the default collation on the database and tables? Does it do any type of conversion to make sure the existing data is in utf-8 format? I've read where people do this by dumping the database, running iconv on the dump file, then importing the data back in using the correct charset. I'm not sure if the iconv step is required to get the data in the correct format.

Thanks,
Sean

[Jan]

Hi, it just change the collation (such can be used for converting the data) You can test it but of course, it is better to export/import the data to some test database server and try to change the collation in test server. It is not recommended to do it on live server.

Jan