How to make mysqldump use /*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8mb4 */;?

Question

When I use mysqldump to export mysql database, it always produce a dump.sql containing

...some other things...
/*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8*/;
...some other things...

This is the mysqldump command I use:

mysqldump -u root -p databaseName -R -E --single-transaction --default-character-set=utf8mb4 > dump.sql

The charset of the mysql database is utf8mb4 rather than utf8, the characters related variables is:

+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| 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                       |
| character_sets_dir       | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
| collation_connection     | utf8mb4_unicode_ci         |
| collation_database       | utf8mb4_unicode_ci         |
| collation_server         | utf8mb4_unicode_ci         |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+

Why does mysqldump always add /*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8*/ rather than /*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8mb4*/?

What happens if /*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8*/ is used?

Can we have mysqldump use /*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8mb4*/?

Answer 1

That special type of comment says "leave this as a comment if running a version older than 4.1.1; else execute it".

utf8mb4 came in in 5.5.3, so the 'correct' version would be

/*!50503 SET character_set_client = utf8mb4*/

If your version of mysqldump and mysql are newer than 5.5.3, no harm is done by leaving it 40101. If you do try to load it on a mysql older than 5.5.3, the SET will probably complain.

As for why mysqldump does not say 50503 -- I suspect that is a bug. File it at http://bugs.mysql.com.