# Writing Greek characters to a MySql database

**URL:** <https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/writing-greek-characters-to-a-mysql-database/1181>\
**Category:** CloverDX Platform\
**Created:** [February 25, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/writing-greek-characters-to-a-mysql-database/1181 "2013-02-25T00:00:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![svyates](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@svyates](https://forum.cloverdx.com/u/svyates)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/writing-greek-characters-to-a-mysql-database/1181/1 "2013-02-25T00:00:00Z")

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I am unable to see Greek characters in a MySql database table after populating the table using the DBOutputTable writer. I’m reading in an Excel spreadsheet, using the Reformat transformer and then using the writer. When I enable debug, between Reformat and DBOutput and view the data, I see the Greek characters. However once written to the database, I just seen ???s. I believe I have all the appropriate options set to UTF-8, but I can’t seem to get it to work. If I populate the table field directly with Greek characters, it works fine. It’s just in the DBOutput where there seems to be a problem. Perhaps I’m missing one little piece somewhere.  
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![imriskal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b38774/32.png) [@imriskal](https://forum.cloverdx.com/u/imriskal)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2013, 11:55am UTC](https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/writing-greek-characters-to-a-mysql-database/1181/2 "2013-02-26T11:55:33Z")

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Hello, svyates,

Please, try DB connection with URL similar to this:

jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydatabase?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8

With this URL, everything works fine on my side. So I hope it helps you also. But let me know, if this is not helpful in your case.

Best regards,

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**Author:** ![svyates](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@svyates](https://forum.cloverdx.com/u/svyates)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 12:11pm UTC](https://forum.cloverdx.com/t/writing-greek-characters-to-a-mysql-database/1181/3 "2013-03-01T12:11:26Z")

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Thank you, Lubos!!! It’s working fine now!

Cheers,

Steve