Collation check/change/reminder when installing

[jonket]

I am not familiar with what is the most common use of collation in database.

As far as I can see CPG uses default collation of database it is going to use.

When the intention is to bridge CPG with another application this can cause a conflict (like phpbb3 that uses utf8_bin collation default).

It would be great to be able to choose collation at install to avoid conflict with special characters (table_users).  At least get information that I have to consider what collation to use.

Anyway, since its is using UTF-8, is it such a bad idea that CPG sets at least the collation to utf8-bin during install (if that is the correct one to use in most cases).

I may be talking about things here that I have not much knowledge of and if I am on the wrong track I apologize.

Best regards,  Jon

[Αndré]

I think you are speaking of the encoding, not the collation.

[jonket]

Well, I am not a specialist in mysql and databases.

But it made all the difference in bridging with phpbb3 and using phpbb3_users for coppermine when the collation was the same.

Below is a snipping of my definition on a new database.

Below that is a snipping of my tables after CPG 1.5.8 fresh install.  No modifications.

I am a little confused now since I set the database to use utf8_bin collation but it installs anyway as latin1_general_ci collation.

I tried a new install again since I am confused.  

New database set as utf8_bin.  Went into "Operation" for the database in phpmyadmin and there it says collation latin_general_ci.

I change that with "ALTER DATABASE `databasename` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin " before installing CPG and after new install the collation is utf8_bin.

Maybe this is a server problem,  I really don't know.

Anyway, this "problem" caused a lot of search and trial as discussed in thread Username special characters (Icelandic) in bridge to phpbb3 disappear

That solution worked for me.  It worked for another one but he had to alter the collation of all his tables.

I find it neccesary to be able to use language's special characters in usernames.

I hope this makes clear what I am talking about.

Am I making sense or is this just rubbish?


Best regards,  Jon

[Αndré]

I know what you're talking about. It's the charset, not the collation. The collation affects only the sorting of the results.