How do I insert Unicode into a MySQL database?

Question

I'm having trouble transferring Unicode strings from one MySQL database to another using DatabaseLink` functions. Here is my failed attempt to read a string from one database and insert it into another:

SQLSelect[conn["source"], "users", {"user_name"}, SQLColumn["user_id"] == 56]
(* {{"Дмитрий"}} *)

SQLUpdate[conn["target"], "users", {"user_name"}, {%[[1, 1]]}, SQLColumn["user_id"] == 56];

SQLSelect[conn["target"], "users", {"user_name"}, SQLColumn["user_id"] == 56]
(* {{"???????"}} *)

Any ideas on how to do this correctly? Thanks!

Answer 1

Based on this answer, I solved the issue by adding "Properties" -> {"characterEncoding" -> "UTF-8"} to the connection:

conn = OpenSQLConnection[JDBC["mysql", "localhost:3306/test"], 
  "Username" -> user, "Password" -> pwd, 
  "Properties" -> {"characterEncoding" -> "UTF-8"}]