MySQL searching "äåö" in a UTF-8 table doesnt find anything

Question

The data is displayed correctly but when doing searches it doesn't find anything. This is how data is stored in a table with UTF8 encoding.

Default charset: utf8mb4
names: utf8
character_set_client : utf8

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SELECT * FROM article WHERE description like '%några%' //returns null but it should return one row
SELECT * FROM article WHERE description like '%nå%' //works
SELECT * FROM article WHERE description like '%någ%' //returns null

I think mysql converts å to a.

I have tried to convert the search query to utf8 using php function utf8_encode($str). But no success here. How can I solve this issue?

Have you tried checking other functions as well e.g. instr(description,'%några%' ) > 0 — Krishna, Jan 22 '14 at 08:10
Tried it now. NO success.However it works if I search for %nÃ¥gra% — , Jan 22 '14 at 08:17
possible duplicate of [UTF-8 all the way through](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/279170/utf-8-all-the-way-through) — deceze, Jan 22 '14 at 08:18
"nÃ¥gra" stored in the database and "några" are obviously not the same words. You have an encoding problem when inserting into the database, storing your data as garbage. — deceze, Jan 22 '14 at 08:18
@Error404 It is UTF8 misinterpreted as something else, probably Latin1. — glglgl, Jan 22 '14 at 08:29
"några" encoded in UTF-8 will display as "några" when interpreted as UTF-8. "några" encoded in Latin-1 will display as "några" when interpreted as Latin1. A string misinterpreted or misconverted at some point will look like garbage. — deceze, Jan 22 '14 at 08:31
@deceze copy your last comment and post it as an answer. I truncated all tables and set the connection to utf8. The new data is readable in the database. and therefore the search result works as expected. Thanks for the help. — , Jan 22 '14 at 08:33

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

"nÃ¥gra" stored in the database and "några" are obviously not the same words. You have an encoding problem when inserting into the database, storing your data as garbage. – deceze 15 mins ago

"några" encoded in UTF-8 will display as "några" when interpreted as UTF-8. "några" encoded in Latin-1 will display as "några" when interpreted as Latin1. A string misinterpreted or misconverted at some point will look like garbage. – deceze 2 mins ago

duplicate of UTF-8 all the way through – deceze 16 mins ago

MySQL searching "äåö" in a UTF-8 table doesnt find anything

1 Answers1