django python collation error

Question

What is the reason for the following error? when i try to filter with:

if MyObject.objects.filter(location = aDictionary['address']):

where location is defined as:

location = models.CharField(max_length=100, blank=True, default='')

I get the following error when aDictionary['address'] contains a string with a non-alphanumeric character (for example Kīhei):

  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/MySQLdb/connections.py", line 35, in defaul
terrorhandler
    raise errorclass, errorvalue
_mysql_exceptions.OperationalError: (1267, "Illegal mix of collations (latin1_sw
edish_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation '='")

Answer 1

Alter the database in MySQL like so:

ALTER TABLE foo CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

When creating a new database, remember to create with the right collate settings:

CREATE DATABASE foo CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

More discussion here.

Answer 2

Python is using Unicode strings, and your database is not. Change your database collation to use utf8 and you should be fine.