DB charset in CI 1.6.0

[eluser]dik_[/eluser]
Hi all,

I thought that the new options char_set and dbcollat in the DB config allow one to set what the connection's charset and collation are, unlike CI < 1.6, where I had to do this manually in system/database/DB.php, towards the bottom:

Code:

// Instantiate the DB adapter
    $driver = 'CI_DB_'.$params['dbdriver'].'_driver';
    $DB =& new $driver($params);    
    $DB->query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");
    return $DB;

However, when I upgraded, my UTF8 characters seem like garbage, and I still had to run that query to get it done properly.

Is there something I am missing?

Thanks for any input