mysql utf8 encoding and unique keys

Question

I am inporting data fom a user table (many users from many sites):
myisam default collation latin1_swedish....

Importing that data into a innodb table utf8_general

I have placed a unique key on the username,site_id combination but this is failing on 2 users of the same site:

user 1    dranfog,
user 2    drånfog

If I run:

SELECT IF('å' = 'a', 'yep', 'nope');

directly on the target db with utf8 encoding, I get 'yep'.

Any tips on resolving this most welcome. I was of impression utf8 would treat these as different charcters but that seem to not be the case.

Answer 1

Collations that end with _ci are case (and accent) insensitive.

You could change the collation to 'utf8_binary' to treat dranfog differently than drånfog.