vikunja/docs/content/doc/setup/utf-8.md

date	title	draft	type	menu
2020-07-06:00:00+02:00	UTF-8 Settings	false	doc	sidebar parent setup

UTF-8 Settings

Vikunja itself is always fully capable of handling utf-8 characters. However, your database might be not. Vikunja itself will work just fine until you want to use non-latin characters in your tasks/projects/etc.

On this page, you will find information about how to fully ensure non-latin characters like aüäß or emojis work with your installation.

{{< table_of_contents >}}

Postgresql & SQLite

Postgresql and SQLite should handle utf-8 just fine - If you discover any issues nonetheless, please drop us a message.

MySQL

MySQL is not able to handle utf-8 by default. To fix this, follow the steps below.

To find out if your db supports utf-8, run the following in a shell or similar, assuming the database you're using for vikunja is called vikunja:

{{< highlight sql >}} SELECT default_character_set_name FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA WHERE schema_name = 'vikunja'; {{< /highlight >}}

This will get you a result like the following:

+----------------------------+
| default_character_set_name |
+----------------------------+
| latin1                     |
+----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.001 sec)

The charset latin1 means the db is encoded in the latin1 encoding which does not support utf-8 characters.

(The following guide is based on this thread from stackoverflow)

0. Backup your database

Before attempting any conversion, please [back up your database]({{< ref "backups.md">}}).

1. Create a pre-conversion script

Copy the following sql statements in a file called preAlterTables.sql and replace all occurences of vikunja with the name of your database:

{{< highlight sql >}} use information_schema; SELECT concat("ALTER DATABASE ",table_schema," CHARACTER SET = utf8mb4 COLLATE = utf8mb4_unicode_ci;") as _sql FROM TABLES where table_schema like 'vikunja' and TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE' group by table_schema; SELECT concat("ALTER TABLE ",table_schema,".",table_name," CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;") as _sql
FROM TABLES where table_schema like 'vikunja' and TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE' group by table_schema, table_name; SELECT concat("ALTER TABLE ",table_schema,".",table_name, " CHANGE ",column_name," ",column_name," ",data_type,"(",character_maximum_length,") CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci",IF(is_nullable="YES"," NULL"," NOT NULL"),";") as _sql FROM COLUMNS where table_schema like 'vikunja' and data_type in ('varchar','char'); SELECT concat("ALTER TABLE ",table_schema,".",table_name, " CHANGE ",column_name," ",column_name," ",data_type," CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci",IF(is_nullable="YES"," NULL"," NOT NULL"),";") as _sql FROM COLUMNS where table_schema like 'vikunja' and data_type in ('text','tinytext','mediumtext','longtext'); {{< /highlight >}}

2. Run the pre-conversion script

Running this will create the actual migration script for your particular database structure and save it in a file called alterTables.sql:

{{< highlight bash >}} mysql -uroot < preAlterTables.sql | egrep '^ALTER' > alterTables.sql {{< /highlight >}}

3. Convert the database

At this point converting is just a matter of executing the previously generated sql script:

{{< highlight bash >}} mysql -uroot < alterTables.sql {{< /highlight >}}

4. Verify it was successfully converted

If everything worked as intended, your db collation should now look like this:

{{< highlight sql >}} SELECT default_character_set_name FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA WHERE schema_name = 'vikunja'; {{< /highlight >}}

Should get you:

+----------------------------+
| default_character_set_name |
+----------------------------+
| utf8mb4                    |
+----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.001 sec)