SSIS - Data from MySql to MsSql some characters are ?

Question

hi there

I just transferred some data from MySql to MsSql (2K5) in a text field, some of my characters, such as apostrophes, are now ? (question mark) to me this indicates some sort of collation or character set error, right?

To be honest, I don't know which one should I be using

The MySql db currect charset is utf8_general_ci and in ms sql is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS .

I have tried changing the charset of the mysql table to latin1_swedish_ci, however this doesnt help

Thanks for the input

Answer 1

Have you tried changing the target (SQL Server) column data type to NVARCHAR?

The utf8_general_ci collation on the MySQL column indicates a Unicode data type. If the source is Unicode, so should be the target - for the easiest transition.

Collations themselves play a minor role here. They just affect comparison and sorting.

Answer 2

You might also need to check the SSIS type of the columns in your dataflow. Remember, the data type and character set is set at the connection manager on the source (and that may involve a conversion from the original native character set). Also, any operations like derived columns or conversions will have a character set which can be altered and will persist down that column's lineage in the data flow. At the end when it gets to the destination, there could be additional character set coercion/conversion.