Database Collations Piss Me Off
I just moved this blog onto another host, and of course in the process you have to move your database to another host. Of course, this couldn’t be an easy task:
- First, MySQL changed the default collation on their database server installs from latin1 to UTF8. UTF8 is by far a superior choice, but it’s the change that causes the pain since all older databases are latin1.
- To make things worse, it turns out WordPress (the software running this blog) shoves UTF8 into the database regardless of what the database collation is set to. Christ.
- To make things more worse, when you have a latin1 database table with UTF8 in it, phpmyadmin can’t export it without filling in those UTF8 entries with junk characters.
- And just to top it off, I have a whole blog posting based around the word “piñata.”
Anyway, after database export after export after export, and with the help of a WordPress plug-in designed specifically to fix this dumbness, I think I have it all finally straightened-out. Everything’s moved over to the new host, and working exactly how it did on the old host. (With one exception: the backup plug-in I was using isn’t compatible with Windows servers because it uses hard-coded path separators.)
Joy.
If you see any problems with anything, please let me know in the comments. Unless comments aren’t working, then send me a singing telegram.