How can I insert smiley faces into MySQL ( 😊 )

Question

I'm on MySQL 5.5.21, and trying to insert the '\xF0\x9F\x98\x8A' smiley face character. But for the life of me, I can't figure out how to do it.

According to various forums which I've been reading, it is possible. But whenever I try it, the data just gets truncated.

mysql> INSERT INTO hour  (  `title`,   `content`,   `guid` ,  `published` , `lang` ,  `type` ,  
       `indegree` ,  `lon` ,  `lat` ,  `state` ,  `country` , `hour`  )   
       VALUES ( "title" ,  "content 😊  content" ,  "guid" ,  1,  1,   
                     "WEBLOG",  1,  1,  1,  "state" ,  "country" ,  1 );
Query OK, 1 row affected, 2 warnings (0.00 sec)

mysql> show warnings;
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Level   | Code | Message                                                                       |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Warning | 1366 | Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x8A  ...' for column 'content' at row 1 |
| Warning | 1265 | Data truncated for column 'published' at row 1                                |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select LAST_INSERT_ID();
+------------------+
| LAST_INSERT_ID() |
+------------------+
|           687302 |
+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from hour where id = 687302;
+--------+-------+----------+------+---------------------+
| id     | title | content  | guid | published           |
+--------+-------+----------+------+---------------------+
| 687302 | title | content  | guid | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 |
+--------+-------+----------+------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

But my table definition is as follows.

CREATE TABLE `hour` (
  `id` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `title` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `content` text CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `guid` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `published` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `lang` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `type` enum('WEBLOG','MICROBLOG') CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `indegree` int(4) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `lon` float DEFAULT NULL,
  `lat` float DEFAULT NULL,
  `state` varchar(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '',
  `country` varchar(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '',
  `hour` int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
  `gender` enum('MALE','FEMALE') CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `time_zone` varchar(45) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MEMORY AUTO_INCREMENT=687560 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 KEY_BLOCK_SIZE=288 

One can see that I'm using CHARSET=utf8mb4. Surely this corrects issues around the use of multi-byte characters?

Ok, so I didn't notice:

  `content` text CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,

I've corrected that now, but still get funky results.

CREATE TABLE `hourtmp` (
  `id` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `title` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `content` text NOT NULL,
  `guid` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `published` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `lang` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `type` enum('WEBLOG','MICROBLOG') CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `indegree` int(4) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `lon` float DEFAULT NULL,
  `lat` float DEFAULT NULL,
  `state` varchar(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '',
  `country` varchar(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '',
  `hour` int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
  `gender` enum('MALE','FEMALE') CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `time_zone` varchar(45) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MEMORY AUTO_INCREMENT=687563 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 KEY_BLOCK_SIZE=288 |

 mysql> INSERT INTO hourtmp  (  `title`,   `content`,   `guid` ,  `published` , `lang` ,  `type` ,  `indegree` ,  
 `lon` ,  `lat` ,  `state` ,  `country` , `hour`  )   VALUES ( "title" ,  "content 😊  content" ,  
 "guid" ,  1,  1,   "WEBLOG",  1,  1,  1,  "state" ,  "country" ,  1 );
 Query OK, 1 row affected, 2 warnings (0.00 sec)

 mysql> show warnings;

 | Level   | Code | Message                                                                       |

 | Warning | 1366 | Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x8A  ...' for column 'content' at row 1 |
 | Warning | 1265 | Data truncated for column 'published' at row 1                                |

 2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

 mysql> select * from hourtmp;
 +--------+-------+-----------------------+
 | id     | title | content               |
 +--------+-------+-----------------------+
 | 687560 | title | content ????  content |
 | 687561 | title | content ????  content |
 +--------+-------+-----------------------+

Answer 1

I’ve recently written a detailed guide on how to switch from MySQL’s utf8 to utf8mb4. If you follow the steps there, everything should work correctly. Here are direct links to each individual step in the process:

• Step 1: Create a backup
• Step 2: Upgrade the MySQL server
• Step 3: Modify databases, tables, and columns
• Step 4: Check the maximum length of columns and index keys
• Step 5: Modify connection, client, and server character sets
• Step 6: Repair and optimize all tables

I suspect that your problem can be solved by following step 5. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Do the Following things:

1. Set the database charset to utf8mb4

2. Set the charset of column to utf8mb4

like below query:

ALTER TABLE `comments` CHANGE `text` `text` VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci NOT NULL;