How to make MySQL handle UTF-8 properly

Question

One of the responses to a question I asked yesterday suggested that I should make sure my database can handle UTF-8 characters correctly. How I can do this with MySQL?

Answer 1

Set your database connection to UTF8:

  if($handle = @mysql_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASS)){          
         //set to utf8 encoding
         mysql_set_charset('utf8',$handle);
  }