MySQL Data Type question

[MechEng]

I am attempting to save a string in a MySQL database, that has been generated from an encryption routine (TripleDESEncryption), but I am having trouble finding a data type to store the “string”. Here is a text visulation of the “string” from the encryption process is “捪蜋⦴ꬊ틜玩釯”.

Within the code (C#), a variable declared as type “string” works fine and I can encrypt and decrypt without error… I just can not store that string for retrieval later.

Any help is appreciated in advance.

[si_the_geek]

That looks like unicode, so you need to use a char based datatype that supports unicode.

I don't know what MySQL calls them, but for SQL Server it is NChar/NVarChar/etc. There may be "wide" in the name/description.

In terms of putting it into the database, make sure you use parameters - as the encrypted text is likely to (at some point) include escape characters that will cause errors if placed directly into SQL statements.

[Campion]

The column needs to be declared as 'text'.

[MechEng]

I have tried type "Text", "LongText", "blob", and all the other usual suspects. The data types associated with “string” will store the text as “????????”. Type Blob places a big red “X” in the field, but will not store/retrieve the correct value.

The only data type that begins with “N” in numeric and it also stores/retrieves “????????”.

[si_the_geek]

I'd recommend reading the documentation, particularly 9.1.9:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/...alization.html

[techgnome]

don't confuse the data with the font being used to display the data....

-tg

[MechEng]

I am there now trying to figure out which utf8 unicode language to use. This does look like the right area though. thanks

[MechEng]

WEll, I can not find an MySql data type that will hold the unicode string. In my reading I have found that there are others with the same problem and most of the solutions revolve around using the convert to a base64 string. I will play around with this a bit more, but I sure could use advice if anyone has direct experience with this. Anyway- thanks for your help.