> One of my table got messed up on the "title" column.
>
> For example the french word "frère" is now written as "frère".
>
> I guess what happened was:
>
> 1) select convert(_latin1 "frère" using utf8)
> --> frère
> 2) select convert(_latin1 "frère" using utf8)
> --> frères

It could also be that you sent utf-8 data on a latin-1 connection. To be
sure what encoding is used, send the following command:
SHOW VARIABLES LIKE '%char%';

If it is a combination of a web site and MySQL that put the data there,
the encoding of the site may be utf-8, causing browsers to send utf-8 data.

> My problem is that I couldn't get it backward by doing :
>
> select convert(_utf8 "frère" using latin1)

This is a tough one. what you see is no longer what you get. It all
depends of the encoding used. In what encoding is your string sent to
the server? And how do you send it (using which program)?

Best regards,
--
Willem Bogaerts

Application smith
Kratz B.V.
http://www.kratz.nl/