Unicode support with MySQL

This information is accurate as of November 2020. It may change as product versions change.

Database Version

In order to use Unicode in your MySQL database, you must be using MySQL v4.1 or later.

Client Version

Support for Unicode was introduced in MySQL Connector version 5. You must be using this version, or a more recent one, to use access Unicode data with AQT.

For MySQL Connector version 8, when you install the Connector you will get two ODBC Drivers:

• MySQL ODBC 8.0 ANSI Driver
• MySQL ODBC 8.0 Unicode Driver

You must use the Unicode driver.

Data Types

Unicode strings are held in columns with a unicode character set. The character set is specified either when the column is defined, or from the character_set_database system variable.

Example:

Create table unicode_test (unicol varchar(20) character set utf8mb4)

You can see the character set of your columns with the "Column character sets" display on the Database Explorer.

Running SQL Statements with Unicode literals

In MySQL, Unicode literals can be specified in a number of ways:

• prefixed with an N (example: N'ald').
• prefixed with an underscore and the codeset name (example: _utf8 'ald').