Illegal mix of collations (utf8_unicode_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,IMPLICIT) for operation '='

Question

Error message on MySql:

Illegal mix of collations (utf8_unicode_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,IMPLICIT) for operation \'=\'

I have gone

Answer 1

The default collation for stored procedure parameters is utf8_general_ci and you can't mix collations, so you have four options:

Option 1: add COLLATE to your input variable:

SET @rUsername = ‘aname’ COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci; -- COLLATE added
CALL updateProductUsers(@rUsername, @rProductID, @rPerm);

Option 2: add COLLATE to the WHERE clause:

CREATE PROCEDURE updateProductUsers(
    IN rUsername VARCHAR(24),
    IN rProductID INT UNSIGNED,
    IN rPerm VARCHAR(16))
BEGIN
    UPDATE productUsers
        INNER JOIN users
        ON productUsers.userID = users.userID
        SET productUsers.permission = rPerm
        WHERE users.username = rUsername COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci -- COLLATE added
        AND productUsers.productID = rProductID;
END

Option 3: add it to the IN parameter definition:

CREATE PROCEDURE updateProductUsers(
    IN rUsername VARCHAR(24) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci, -- COLLATE added
    IN rProductID INT UNSIGNED,
    IN rPerm VARCHAR(16))
BEGIN
    UPDATE productUsers
        INNER JOIN users
        ON productUsers.userID = users.userID
        SET productUsers.permission = rPerm
        WHERE users.username = rUsername
        AND productUsers.productID = rProductID;
END

Option 4: alter the field itself:

ALTER TABLE users CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

Unless you need to sort data in Unicode order, I would suggest altering all your tables to use utf8_general_ci collation, as it requires no code changes, and will speed sorts up slightly.

UPDATE: utf8mb4/utf8mb4_unicode_ci is now the preferred character set/collation method. utf8_general_ci is advised against, as the performance improvement is negligible. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/766996/1432614