# Copyright (c) symbol, mysql and utf8

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/copyright-c-symbol-mysql-and-utf8/110104>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 23, 2007, 6:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/copyright-c-symbol-mysql-and-utf8/110104 "2007-07-23T06:59:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Kip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Kip)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 6:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/copyright-c-symbol-mysql-and-utf8/110104/1 "2007-07-23T06:59:33Z")

</div>

I extracted metadata from my image files and stored them in a mysql  
table using the default .yml configuration. The meta data includes a  
lot of “Copyright © Kip 2007 blah blah blah” (only with the real  
symbol \251).

When I display the information from my app in a browser I got the  
“square” replacing the symbol. SInce the headers all looked fine if  
figured it was the database connection. So I changed the connection  
to “encoding: utf8” and voila, the symbol appears correctly.

However, now when I reload the metadata the information is truncated  
at the symbol (ie. on the 'Copyright ’ makes it to the database.

Summary:  
“encoding default” i can store the right data, but not display it  
“encoding: utf8” I can display the right data, but not store it.

The database is utf8, the collation is utf8-general.

Any suggestions or pointers would be much appreciated!

Cheers, --Kip