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POImporting text to MySQL: strange format
 

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  1. POImporting text to MySQL: strange format
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    <p>I'm importing some data from a .txt file into a MySQL database table, using mysqlimport. It seems to import OK (no error messages) but looks very odd when displayed, and can't be searched as expected.</p> <p>Here are the details. The original text file is saved in UTF-8, with records that look (in a text editor) like this. The second field includes line breaks:</p> <pre><code>WAR-16,52 ~~~~~ Lorem ipsum dolor sit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit. ~~~~~ ENDOFRECORD WAR-16,53~~~~~Lorem ipsum dolor sit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit. ~~~~~ ENDOFRECORD </code></pre> <p>The database table into which I am importing is very simple:</p> <pre><code>+-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ | id | varchar(100) | YES | | NULL | | | text | varchar(5000) | YES | | NULL | | +-------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ 2 rows in set (0.00 sec) </code></pre> <p>When I import the file, here's the command I use:</p> <pre><code>$ mysqlimport -u root db textfile.txt --fields-terminated-by="~~~~~" --lines-terminated-by="ENDOFTHELINE" --default-character-set='utf8' db.records_list: Records: 18778 Deleted: 0 Skipped: 0 Warnings: 18787 </code></pre> <p>Here's what I see if I then ask MySQL to display the records:</p> <pre><code>mysql&gt; select * from textfile; | W A R - 1 6 , 5 2 | L o r e m i p s u m d o l o r s i t . L o r e m i p s u m d o l o r s i t . (etc) </code></pre> <p>So, it looks as though spaces, or some strange encoding extras, are being added to the text.</p> <p>And here's the problem with the database query:</p> <pre><code>mysql&gt; select * from textfile where id like "%WAR%"; </code></pre> <p>returns nothing; nor does adding spaces:</p> <pre><code>mysql&gt; select * from textfile where id like "%W A R%"; </code></pre> <p>Only this command returns anything</p> <pre><code>mysql&gt; select * from textfile where id like "%W%"; </code></pre> <p>Can anyone guess what might be happening? I feel like it must be an encoding problem, but I can't work it out.</p> <p>------ UPDATE -------- </p> <p>OK, I've checked the database and connection encoding.</p> <pre><code>mysql&gt; show variables like "character_set_%"; +--------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Variable_name | Value | +--------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | character_set_client | latin1 | | character_set_connection | latin1 | | character_set_database | latin1 | | character_set_filesystem | binary | | character_set_results | latin1 | | character_set_server | latin1 | | character_set_system | utf8 | | character_sets_dir | /usr/local/mysql/share/mysql/charsets/ | +--------------------------+----------------------------------------+ 8 rows in set (0.01 sec) </code></pre> <p>And <code>show table status</code> says the table is <code>latin1_swedish_ci</code>.</p> <p>I have re-saved the text file in "Western (Windows Latin 1)" (using TextEdit on Snow Leopard) and tried to import it using the same command as above. However I still have the same encoding problem. </p> <p>I also tried, again with no luck:</p> <ul> <li>creating a new table with UTF-8 and importing the existing file </li> <li>copying &amp; pasting the text into another text file that I've previously imported fine, and trying to import that.</li> </ul> <p>Still totally baffled :(((</p>
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