Rails DB defaults to utf8 for mysql -- but unicode for postgresql

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi,

Creating a new Rails application with -d postgresql sets the encoding in the database.yml to unicode

Creating a new Rails with -d mysql sets the encoding to utf8

Any ideas why this difference?

I've been having problems with encoding due to localization, accents, json and what no. I thought I was using utf8 and not unicode. Would this have any impact?

If this would be an issue? What to take into account when doing a change of that type on a production DB?

Thanks.

2

Hi,

Creating a new Rails application with -d postgresql sets the encoding in the database.yml to unicode

Creating a new Rails with -d mysql sets the encoding to utf8

According to PostgreSQL: Documentation: 8.4: Character Set Support Unicode as an encoding name is just an alias for UTF8. Earlier versions only list Unicode as the name of that encoding, so I assuming this means that setting the name unicode ensures that a range of postgresql versions will use UTF8 (or perhaps the database.yml template hasn't been updated from the time where the only name for UTF8 was Unicode)

Fred

Fred

3

According to PostgreSQL: Documentation: 8.4: Character Set Support Unicode as an encoding name is just an alias for UTF8. Earlier versions only list Unicode as the name of that encoding, so I assuming this means that setting the name unicode ensures that a range of postgresql versions will use UTF8 (or perhaps the database.yml template hasn't been updated from the time where the only name for UTF8 was Unicode)

Fred

Fred

Yeah I checked the same and saw that UTF8 was listed. But confused because different opinions regarding their meanings varies. And also that Rails would make that differentiation.

But checking the db with PgAdmin3 locally I can see this info:

CREATE DATABASE app_development   WITH OWNER = me        ENCODING = 'UTF8'        TABLESPACE = pg_default        CONNECTION LIMIT = -1;

So ultimately encoding: unicode translates into utf8

Thanks Fred!