How can I insert smiley faces into MySQL ( 😊 )

Question

I'm on MySQL 5.5.21, and trying to insert the '\xF0\x9F\x98\x8A' smiley face character. But for the life of me, I can't figure out how to do it.

According to various forums which I've been reading, it is possible. But whenever I try it, the data just gets truncated.

mysql> INSERT INTO hour  (  `title`,   `content`,   `guid` ,  `published` , `lang` ,  `type` ,  
       `indegree` ,  `lon` ,  `lat` ,  `state` ,  `country` , `hour`  )   
       VALUES ( "title" ,  "content 😊  content" ,  "guid" ,  1,  1,   
                     "WEBLOG",  1,  1,  1,  "state" ,  "country" ,  1 );
Query OK, 1 row affected, 2 warnings (0.00 sec)

mysql> show warnings;
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Level   | Code | Message                                                                       |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Warning | 1366 | Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x8A  ...' for column 'content' at row 1 |
| Warning | 1265 | Data truncated for column 'published' at row 1                                |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select LAST_INSERT_ID();
+------------------+
| LAST_INSERT_ID() |
+------------------+
|           687302 |
+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from hour where id = 687302;
+--------+-------+----------+------+---------------------+
| id     | title | content  | guid | published           |
+--------+-------+----------+------+---------------------+
| 687302 | title | content  | guid | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 |
+--------+-------+----------+------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

But my table definition is as follows.

CREATE TABLE `hour` (
  `id` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `title` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `content` text CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `guid` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `published` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `lang` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `type` enum('WEBLOG','MICROBLOG') CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `indegree` int(4) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `lon` float DEFAULT NULL,
  `lat` float DEFAULT NULL,
  `state` varchar(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '',
  `country` varchar(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '',
  `hour` int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
  `gender` enum('MALE','FEMALE') CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `time_zone` varchar(45) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MEMORY AUTO_INCREMENT=687560 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 KEY_BLOCK_SIZE=288 

One can see that I'm using CHARSET=utf8mb4. Surely this corrects issues around the use of multi-byte characters?

Ok, so I didn't notice:

  `content` text CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,

I've corrected that now, but still get funky results.

CREATE TABLE `hourtmp` (
  `id` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `title` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `content` text NOT NULL,
  `guid` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `published` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `lang` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `type` enum('WEBLOG','MICROBLOG') CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `indegree` int(4) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `lon` float DEFAULT NULL,
  `lat` float DEFAULT NULL,
  `state` varchar(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '',
  `country` varchar(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '',
  `hour` int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
  `gender` enum('MALE','FEMALE') CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `time_zone` varchar(45) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MEMORY AUTO_INCREMENT=687563 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 KEY_BLOCK_SIZE=288 |

 mysql> INSERT INTO hourtmp  (  `title`,   `content`,   `guid` ,  `published` , `lang` ,  `type` ,  `indegree` ,  
 `lon` ,  `lat` ,  `state` ,  `country` , `hour`  )   VALUES ( "title" ,  "content 😊  content" ,  
 "guid" ,  1,  1,   "WEBLOG",  1,  1,  1,  "state" ,  "country" ,  1 );
 Query OK, 1 row affected, 2 warnings (0.00 sec)

 mysql> show warnings;

 | Level   | Code | Message                                                                       |

 | Warning | 1366 | Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x8A  ...' for column 'content' at row 1 |
 | Warning | 1265 | Data truncated for column 'published' at row 1                                |

 2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

 mysql> select * from hourtmp;
 +--------+-------+-----------------------+
 | id     | title | content               |
 +--------+-------+-----------------------+
 | 687560 | title | content ????  content |
 | 687561 | title | content ????  content |
 +--------+-------+-----------------------+