JDBC character encoding

Question

I have a Java Web application running on GlassFish 3 and JPA (EclipseLink) on MySQL. The problem I'm facing is that if I'm saving entities to the database with the update() method, String fields lose integrity; '?' is shown instead of some characters.

The server, pages and database are configured to use UTF-8.

After I post form data, the next page shows the data correctly. Furthermore it "seems" in NetBeans debug that the String property of the current entity stores the correct value too. I don't know if NetBeans debug can be trusted; might be that it decodes correctly, however it's incorrect.

What is the database and what connection string are you using? — Pascal Thivent, Jun 14 '10 at 20:47
I'm using MySQL and the connection string is: `jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/administer` — Daniel Szalay, Jun 14 '10 at 21:10
A link for those who are looking to use utf8mb4: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/connector-j/en/connector-j-reference-charsets.html — Daniel Szalay, Oct 15 '14 at 08:28

score 53 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 15 '10 at 05:07

53

It's JDBC, not JPA that determines the encoding:

jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/administer?characterEncoding=utf8

answered Jun 15 '10 at 05:07

Bozho

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Just a sidenote for those who come across the same problem: if you want to chain parameters in the JDBC url in your `persistence.xml`, you have to rewrite `&` as `&`. Example: `jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/administer?rewriteBatchedStatements=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8` – Daniel Szalay Aug 22 '14 at 21:02
For newer versions of jdbc driver (>= 5.1.13), do not specify "characterEncoding". Have a look: http://stackoverflow.com/a/18059663/967062 – Nitin Bansal Feb 07 '17 at 08:40

Daniel Szalay · Answer 2 · 2014-07-30T07:23:46.040

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I solved it with the following: I used the GlassFish admin interface to add this property to my connection pool's settings:

characterEncoding = UTF-8

edited Jul 30 '14 at 07:23

answered Jun 14 '10 at 21:23

Daniel Szalay

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score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 18 '16 at 09:11

5

New version JDBC driver auto detect the characterEncoding. You do not need to set it explicitly.

answered Mar 18 '16 at 09:11

fjjiaboming

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 29 '15 at 15:40

I had to add useUnicode=true as well, so I had to concat the parameters with '&' so it looks like this:

jdbc:mysql://127.0.0.1:3306/warranteer?useUnicode=true&amp;amp;characterEncoding=UTF-8

If you're using maven profiles to set the MySQL URL, like me, make sure you put &amp; instead & because maven unescape the url when writing the persistence.xml file to classes folder.

JDBC character encoding

4 Answers4

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