SheppardDigital
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MySQL not outputting all Emojis in text field when using UTF8MB4
We have a project where we're storing Facebook and Twitter posts in a Mysql database, as first almost all Emojis were being stored as ?. We've since gone ahead and made some configuration changes to the database server, and since then we're starting to see more Emojis saving and appearing correctly, however some Emojis are still showing as ?, sadly I'm not sure which ones they are. I know one of them was a basket ball.
When I execute the following commend on MySQL;
I see the following settings;
Our database server is hosted with Rackspace, we've asked them to set up the following configuration;
I think I've narrowed the issue down to the server not applying the init-connect that's defined in the server configuration. If I open mysql workbench and query the database, I see question marks in place of emojis, however if I run the SET NAMES query first, then the subsequent results come back showing the emojis as I expect.
When I execute the following commend on MySQL;
SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_name LIKE 'character\_set\_%' OR Variable_name LIKE 'collation%';I see the following settings;
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_ciOur database server is hosted with Rackspace, we've asked them to set up the following configuration;
[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
init-connect='SET NAMES utf8mb4'I think I've narrowed the issue down to the server not applying the init-connect that's defined in the server configuration. If I open mysql workbench and query the database, I see question marks in place of emojis, however if I run the SET NAMES query first, then the subsequent results come back showing the emojis as I expect.
gheist
It is not executed if connecting user has SUPER privilege.
As noted by gheist, init_connect does not have any effect on non-SUPER users. I very much doubt you want to give that privilege to your application.
Moreover, your client-based settings will not be enforced on every connecting client. It will only impact clients using that .cnf file. And you do need the UTF8MB4 set - some extended characters will not render in vanilla UTF8.
The solution is to have your client (i.e., the application) run SET NAMES as it initializes the database connection.
Moreover, your client-based settings will not be enforced on every connecting client. It will only impact clients using that .cnf file. And you do need the UTF8MB4 set - some extended characters will not render in vanilla UTF8.
The solution is to have your client (i.e., the application) run SET NAMES as it initializes the database connection.
ASKER
Thanks Steve,
We're using Eloquent ORM so I'm looking to see if there's a way to call SET NAMES on every database connection.
I did speak with Rackspace and they confirmed that the user didn't have SUPER privileges, so I suspect that you are correct, the client will need to call SET NAMES.
We're using Eloquent ORM so I'm looking to see if there's a way to call SET NAMES on every database connection.
I did speak with Rackspace and they confirmed that the user didn't have SUPER privileges, so I suspect that you are correct, the client will need to call SET NAMES.
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ASKER
Setting the charset and collation in Laravel's database.php configuration file to utf8mb4 (charset) and utf8mb4_unicode_ci (collation) seems to have done the trick.