How to insert unicode string to mysql

Question

the code is like below:

Connect server

MySQLdb.connect(host=ip, user='root', passwd='root',db='test',use_unicode=True,charset="utf8")
......
sql = "INSERT INTO ci(id,name) VALUES (493,u'Hello')"
print sql
ret = root.execute(sql)
.....

In the server, the tyoe of name is VARCHAR(1000). Then when i run this script, it shows error ProgrammingError: (1064, "You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near

But when i replace u'Hello' with 'Hello', it is OK. So maybe it doesn't support unicode,then i insert unicode string such as "你好" to the table by GUI manually, it is also OK. I can not find what is the reason, who can help me

Answer 1

MySQL needs strings to be enclosed in straight quotes: '你好', 'u' symbol is not allowed. Just declare the whole string as Unicode and pass it to MySQL. Here I am using a prepared statement:

sql = u"INSERT INTO ci(id,name) VALUES (493,'你好')"

Don't forget to run "SET NAMES 'UTF-8'" (or UTF-16 - don't know, what encoding you are using) after you connect to MySQL to ensure, that the server will correctly interpret the string you send it.