Re: [Koha-devel] Character sets in MariaDB 10.5

26 Aug 2021

      Hi Tomas

Today you wrote:
...
Those are just defaults in the OS distribution, that can be changed at
will.
Koha, internally, sets the character set correctly on connection time
[1].
You should always check when they drop support for our used encodings.
Which is not the case (for now?). We have the test suite run against
the latest versions of MariaDB for that purpose.
I recommend you set that defaults correctly so they are picked when
you use the CLI.
I have now added the following line in both files 
"/etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-client.cnf" /section [client]) and 
"/etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-mysql-clients.cnf" (section [mysql]):

default-character-set = utf8mb4

Now as in Debian 9 and 10 the character sets in MariaDB running on 
Debian 11 look as follows:

MariaDB [(none)]> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set_%';
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| 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/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+

Thank you very much for your recommendation!

Best wishes: Michael
-- 
Geschäftsführer · Diplombibliothekar BBS, Informatiker eidg. Fachausweis
Admin Kuhn GmbH · Pappelstrasse 20 · 4123 Allschwil · Schweiz
T 0041 (0)61 261 55 61 · E mik@adminkuhn.ch · W www.adminkuhn.ch
...
El mié., 25 ago. 2021 17:54, Michael Kuhn <mik@adminkuhn.ch 
<mailto:mik@adminkuhn.ch>> escribió:
Hi
1. In the last few years when installing Koha on Debian GNU/Linux 9 or
    10 the character sets in MariaDB were as follows:
MariaDB [(none)]> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE '%char%';
    +--------------------------+----------------------------+
    | 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/ |
    +--------------------------+----------------------------+
Today I installed Koha 21.05.03 on Debian GNU/Linux 11 with MariaDB
    10.5.11 where the character sets are as follows:
MariaDB [(none)]> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE '%char%';
    +--------------------------+----------------------------+
    | Variable_name            | Value                      |
    +--------------------------+----------------------------+
    | 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                       |
    | character_sets_dir       | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
    +--------------------------+----------------------------+
I'm not sure what is going on here. Does anyone know why the character
    sets for client, connection and results have changed from utf8mb4 to
    utf8? Is this correct with Koha or should these character sets be
    changed?
2. Today I came upon an installation of Koha 18.11.05 using MariaDB
    10.0.32 which has the following character sets:
MariaDB [(none)]> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE '%char%';
    +--------------------------+----------------------------+
    | Variable_name            | Value                      |
    +--------------------------+----------------------------+
    | character_set_client     | utf8                       |
    | character_set_connection | utf8                       |
    | character_set_database   | latin1                     |
    | character_set_filesystem | binary                     |
    | character_set_results    | utf8                       |
    | character_set_server     | latin1                     |
    | character_set_system     | utf8                       |
    | character_sets_dir       | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
    +--------------------------+----------------------------+
This seems quite wrong to me - as far as I know "latin1" was never a
    supported character set in Koha... as far as I know the character sets
    should be set as shown in topic 1.
However, is it still possible to update such a database with these
    character sets to Koha 21.05.03 without destroying the data completely?
Best wishes: Michael
    -- 
    Geschäftsführer · Diplombibliothekar BBS, Informatiker eidg. Fachausweis
    Admin Kuhn GmbH · Pappelstrasse 20 · 4123 Allschwil · Schweiz
    T 0041 (0)61 261 55 61 · E mik@adminkuhn.ch
    <mailto:mik@adminkuhn.ch> · W www.adminkuhn.ch <http://www.adminkuhn.ch>
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