Comments on: UTF-8 A-Go-Go

By: Oleg Kuznetsov

Oleg Kuznetsov — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:25:53 +0000

DBD::mysql v4.011 supports {mysql_enable_utf8 => 1} key, but it does not setup utf8 flag, unfortunately =(

perl 5.10
dbi 1.609

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:02:35 +0000

Thanks Allan. It was certainly written as a band-aid, not a proper fix… it’s nice that people can start to take the band-aid off. Though it’s certainly taken a while for the wound underneath to heal.

(This painfully extended metaphor is brought to you by CPAN and Johnson & Johnson.)

By: Allan Engelhardt

Allan Engelhardt — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:16:03 +0000

For some database drivers the UTF8DBI modules is not longer needed:

DBD::Pg (PostgreSQL) : Use { pg_enable_utf8 => 1 } in the attributes to DBI->connect (e.g. my $dbh=DBI->connect($dsn, $user, $pass, { AutoCommit => 1, RaiseError => 0, pg_enable_utf8 => 1 };) [Tested.]

DBD::mysql (MySQL) : Similarly, use { mysql_enable_utf8 => 1 }. [Not tested and marked "experimental" at http://search.cpan.org/~capttofu/DBD-mysql-4.010/lib/DBD/mysql.pm#mysql_enable_utf8 so try to see if it works for you]

DBD::SQLite (SQLite) : Setting “$dbh->{unicode} = 1″ will turn on the utf8 flag on all strings. [Not tested, see http://search.cpan.org/~msergeant/DBD-SQLite-1.14/lib/DBD/SQLite.pm#unicode

Hope this note will help others….

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:54:00 +0000

Yup. I’ve applied Andrew Scheller’s two fixes to UTF8CGI. Not quite sure how I’d missed them. I’ve also changed UTF8DBI for Pavel Kudinov’s version, but for a couple of changes: * Removed the prototype on the _utf8_ function. * Added back in the check for duff UTF8. Belt and braces. * Removed all but one of the fetch… functions, since, it seems, all of the other statement-handle fetch functions go through that one. * Now that should be all that’s required, in theory, since, as Pavel says, the DBI::db select… functions should just be short ways of getting at the st functions, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It wouldn’t work without me reimplementing the select… functions too. (At least, this is the case in my version of the DBI module, which, as you can imagine, is the one that I care about.) Have fun, –A

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:54:18 +0000

I’m afraid I’m a mere weekend (well, and evenings) Perl programmer. I need all the help I can get, so usually switch on strictness, warnings, and taint mode, too, if the situation seems to benefit from it.

By: Pavel Kudinov

Pavel Kudinov — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:46:05 +0000

Andrew, i just prefer “no warnings”, but “use strict”. i’m just think that perl warnings concept wrong for pretty code writing style.

By: Andrew Scheller

Andrew Scheller — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 10:48:00 +0000

Another update for you :-)
perl -wc UTF8DBI.pm complains with:
UTF8DBI::st::_utf8_() called too early to check prototype at UTF8DBI.pm line 10.

UTF8DBI::st::_utf8_() called too early to check prototype at UTF8DBI.pm line 11.

Apparently (according to google ;) ) the fix is to either forward-declare the _utf8_ sub, or to not use prototypes. I chose the former option (because I’m not familiar with prototypes) and managed to get rid of the warning by inserting:
sub _utf8_();
on the line before the “real” sub.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:18:39 +0000

Thanks for all the feedback.

I haven’t been ignoring you, I’ve just been really busy. I plan to update my code with Pavel and Andrew S’s comments in a couple of weeks (as soon as this show is out of the way).

Best regards,

–A

By: Andrew Scheller

Andrew Scheller — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:46:48 +0000

One more addendum – bet you can’t guess what I’ve spent all day doing! ;)

I think you need to add:
next if $query->upload($key);
after line 50 of UTF8CGI.pm “foreach my $key ($query->param) {”
Otherwise the filehandle (when grabbed with a later query->upload) seems to be invalid…?

By: Andrew Scheller

Andrew Scheller — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 13:35:25 +0000

Ooops, spoke too soon… ;)
After doing some proper testing, I believe I’ve got a bugfix for UTF8CGI.pm :-
For ActivePerl 5.8.8 on Windows 2003 (dunno about other versions/platforms) I needed to change line 53 from:
foreach my $val ($query->param($key)) {
to instead say:
foreach my $val (@{$query->param_fetch($key)}) {
otherwise the param values remain unchanged after the loop.

I also think it’s safe to get rid of “use utf8;” as the only non-ASCII characters are the sloped-apostrophes within comments on lines 49 and 51.