16/03/2009
Convert greek characters from latin1 mysql database fields to pure utf8
The Problem
To sum it up, the case is this: many many many web applications were programmed so that they used latin1 collation for their fields inside mysql databases. But most users now use utf8 from within their browsers. What happens is that utf8 characters are getting stored inside latin1 fields, which in return produces chaos! A huge web application that used that kind of madness was WordPress. Luckily (or not) WordPress now uses utf8 everywhere. I’ve known many many many people that got so frustrated when they tried to move from their old WordPress installation to a newer one because all their greek posts couldn’t be exported “easily”, I won’t say “properly” because there are always solutions to problems like this, but all the solutions were not straightforward at all, that they finally dumped the idea of moving the posts and started a new blog.
This is a HUGE problem for many greek (and not only) users and I hope I now have an elegant(?) solution to it.
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Filed by kargig at 21:14 under Greek,Internet,Linux
Tags: bash, convert, Greek, latin1, mysql, sed, utf8, wordpress
22 Comments | 38,593 views
