MySQL Workbench not respecting configured charset utf8mb4 - mysql

Question

I've been following this tutorial on how to setup a MySQL server/database for unicode, with the hopes of setting up the default character set to utf8mb4, and the collation to utf8mb4_unicode_ci
Just like what is specified in the tutorial, I have the following settings applied in my .ini file, located at C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.7 :
[client]
default-character-set = utf8mb4
[mysql]
default-character-set = utf8mb4
[mysqld]
character-set-client-handshake = FALSE
character-set-server = utf8mb4
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
When running this query in MySql Workbench:
SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_name LIKE 'character\_set\_%' OR Variable_name LIKE 'collation%'
It has not been showing the system variables that I would expect, so initially I thought I had misconfigured the server:
MySql Workbench output
character_set_client utf8
character_set_connection utf8
character_set_database utf8mb4
character_set_filesystem binary
character_set_results utf8
character_set_server utf8mb4
character_set_system utf8
collation_connection utf8_general_ci
collation_database utf8mb4_unicode_ci
collation_server utf8mb4_unicode_ci
However, when using the native MySQL command line client, I'm seeing what I would expect:
+--------------------------+--------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+--------------------+
| character_set_client | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_connection | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_database | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_server | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_system | utf8 |
| collation_connection | utf8mb4_unicode_ci |
| collation_database | utf8mb4_unicode_ci |
| collation_server | utf8mb4_unicode_ci |
+--------------------------+--------------------+
Why would MySql Workbench not respect the configuration settings, like the command line client does?
MySql: Windows/5.7.21
MySql Workbench: Windows/6.3.10

Answer 1

MySQL Workbench doesn't read the ini file and hence doesn't use any of the values in it. How can it, given that it can connect to many servers at the same time?
MySQL Workbench uses a fixed encoding for client and connection character sets (utf-8).
Until version 8.0.11 RC MySQL Workbench used the utf8mb3 charset actually. Starting with that version it switched to utf8mb4.