If you get error like this one:

Mysql2::Error: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x99\x82'

it means that you use verion of Mysql with settings that does not support full Unicode. Changing that in Ruby on Rails should be fairly simple:

class ChangeEncoding < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.0]
  def change
    config = Rails.configuration.database_configuration
    db_name = config[Rails.env]["database"]
    collate = 'utf8mb4_polish_ci'
    char_set = 'utf8mb4'

    execute("ALTER DATABASE #{db_name} CHARACTER SET #{char_set} COLLATE #{collate};")

    ActiveRecord::Base.connection.tables.each do |table|
      execute("ALTER TABLE #{table} CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET #{char_set} COLLATE #{collate};")
    end
  end
end

However you might encounter following error:

Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes

767 bytes is the stated prefix limitation for InnoDB tables.

To fix that you need to:

  • Update your database.yml file
  • Upgrade to MySQL 5.7 or edit your my.cnf  to enable innodb_large_prefix
  • Change row format to DYNAMIC
  • Alter the database and all the tables using Ruby on Rails migration

Database.yml

You need to change your encoding and collation for ActiveRecord:

production:
  encoding: utf8mb4
  collation: utf8mb4_polish_ci

MySQL my.cnf

Edit my.cnf and add following lines:

innodb_large_prefix=on
innodb_file_format=barracuda
innodb_file_per_table=true

DYNAMIC row format

If you don't do this, you will probably (if you have enough indexes) end up with this error:

767 bytes is the stated prefix limitation for InnoDB tables

To change row format, you need to run following query for each table:

ALTER TABLE table_name ROW_FORMAT=DYNAMIC;

However, you don't need to do this manually - below you will find a Ruby on Rails migration that will do everything that is required to make things going.

Complex migration to set everything as it should be in the MySQL database

class ChangeEncoding < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.0]
  def change
    config = Rails.configuration.database_configuration
    db_name = config[Rails.env]["database"]
    collate = 'utf8mb4_polish_ci'
    char_set = 'utf8mb4'
    row_format = 'DYNAMIC'

    execute("ALTER DATABASE #{db_name} CHARACTER SET #{char_set} COLLATE #{collate};")

    ActiveRecord::Base.connection.tables.each do |table|
      execute("ALTER TABLE #{table} ROW_FORMAT=#{row_format};")
      execute("ALTER TABLE #{table} CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET #{char_set} COLLATE #{collate};")
    end
  end
end

After you run this migration, everything should work fine.