Versions of MySQL before 4.1.x do not transform the data to the desired character set, so the actual recoding is done directly by phpMyAdmin, both before sending data to the MySQL server, and after receiving it.
Here is the most important configuration parameter for recoding, shown here with its default value:
$cfg['AllowAnywhereRecoding'] = FALSE;
To activate recoding, we have to set it to TRUE. When this is done, phpMyAdmin verifies that the conditions for recoding are met. For the actual encoding of data, the PHP component of the web server must support the iconv or the recode module. If this is not the case, and the parameter has been set to TRUE, the following error message will be generated:
Cannot load iconv or recode extension needed for charset conversion, configure php to allow using these extensions or disable charset conversion in phpMyAdmin.
If this message is displayed, consult your system's documentation (PHP or the operating...