[debian-mysql] Bug#438970: Bug#438970: Bug#438970: UTF8 default charcterset for mysql-server package

[Christian Hammers]

On 2007-12-05 Cristóbal Palmer wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 11:18:38PM +0100, Norbert Tretkowski wrote:
> > I've read the whole bugreport a few times now, and I think I have to
> > agree with Sean, we should switch the default charset for new databases
> > to utf8, but shouldn't touch existing ones.
> 
> Agreed. I think the easiest way to accomplish this (from the
> sysadmin's perspective) would be to have a separate package, maybe
> mysql-server-utf8? But again, I'm not an experienced packager. I'm
> sure there are great debianish minds that will choose the best path.

Separate packages makes a lot of work on our (now Norberts *g*) side!

Putting default_character_set and default_collation
in /etc/mysql/my.cnf should work and has the advantage that my.cnf is
treated as config file which means that our new version is safely installed
as my.cnf.dpkg-dist if the admin wants to preserve his old configuration.
	
> (1) A previous comment seemed to indicate that changes to my.cnf would
> cover everything. If it's possible to get mysql to do utf8 across the
> board by default (server, db, client, conn) by only adjusting the
> my.cnf under debian, would someone please attach such a my.cnf? I was
> unsuccessful in my attempts to utf8-ify that way.

Remember to put "default-charset" into the [client] part of my.cnf, too.
(If that also does not work please describe exacly what goes wrong)
 
> (2) What are the consequences of changing the default collation?

This is an "other peoples problem". We ship a default config for new
installations and a big fat warning in the NEWS file. If the admin
decides to  overwrite his my.cnf with ours he is responsible, if he
starts from scratch with our UTF-8 config there is no problem :)

> It would be nice if everybody understood encodings thoroughly and
> played nice, but doing a little poking turns up tons of examples of
> webapps behaving badly, and for a variety of reasons.
But I agree to that and Debian would be glad if people with knowledge
test our "ideas" :)

bye,

-christian-
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