linux - Hibernate + MySQL: How to set the encoding utf-8 for database and tables

Question

My system runs on Linux Mandriva, RDBMS - MySQL 5. I need to have the database and tables created in UTF-8.

Here is a fragment of hibernate.cfg.xml -

... 
 <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto">create-drop</property>   
 <property name="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>
 <property name="hibernate.connection.characterEncoding">utf8</property> 
...

my.cnf -

# The MySQL server
[mysqld]
...
default-character-set=cp1251
character-set-server=cp1251
collation-server=cp1251_general_ci
init-connect="SET NAMES cp1251"
skip-character-set-client-handshake
...
[mysqldump]
...    
default-character-set=cp1251
...

Some class, for example -

@Entity
@Table(name = "USER")
public class User {
    @Id 
    @Column(name = "USERID")
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
    private Integer id;

    @Column(name = "USERNAME")
    private String name;

    @Column(name = "USERPASSWORD")
    private String password;

    @Column(name = "USERIP")
    private String ip;
        // getter's and setter's here
        ...

But when the tables are generated, I see the encoding latin1 For example-

SHOW CREATE TABLE USER;

USER  | CREATE TABLE `user` (
  `USERID` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `USERIP` varchar(255) default NULL,
  `USERNAME` varchar(255) default NULL,
  `USERPASSWORD` varchar(255) default NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`USERID`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 |

How to change the encoding to UTF-8?

I would be most grateful for the information! Thank you!

...

This is strange, I have changed all to utf8 -

# The MySQL server
    [mysqld]
    ...
    default-character-set=utf8
    character-set-server=utf8
    collation-server=utf8_general_ci
    init-connect="SET NAMES utf8"
    skip-character-set-client-handshake
    ...
    [mysqldump]
    ...    
    default-character-set=utf8
    ...

And now -

SHOW CREATE TABLE USER;

USER  | CREATE TABLE `USER` (
  `USERID` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `USERIP` varchar(255) default NULL,
  `USERNAME` varchar(255) default NULL,
  `USERPASSWORD` varchar(255) default NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`USERID`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=cp1251 |

Answer 1

You can also create databases with encoding.
Simply use phpMyAdmin for the database/table creation.

There are some URL parameters you would specify in the URL of the hibernate settings to have the connection using UTF8:

<!-- Database Settings -->
<property name="connection.driver_class">com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</property>
<!--  for performance reasons changed to MyISAM from org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect -->
<property name="dialect">org.openmeetings.app.hibernate.utils.MySQL5MyISAMDialect</property>
<property name="connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost/openmeetings?autoReconnect=true&amp;useUnicode=true&amp;createDatabaseIfNotExist=true&amp;characterEncoding=utf-8</property>    

<property name="hibernate.connection.CharSet">utf8</property>
<property name="hibernate.connection.characterEncoding">utf8</property>
<property name="hibernate.connection.useUnicode">true</property>

You don't need to set the whole encoding in the database to utf8 Only if you are using

<!-- Database Scheme Auto Update -->
<property name="hbm2ddl.auto">update</property>   

You WILL have to set the default encoding of MySQL to utf8. Cause the hbm2dll will use the default encoding of the database.

You might still use hbm2ddl.auto, and modify the table's of the database manually to have utf8 collation.

If you are not using hbm2ddl.auto, you can simply create the tables with your favorite encoding. No need to set the database to a special encoding.

Sebastian