Strange issue with "=" and "like"

[Sindre Aarsaether]

Hi. I have a database (utf8) with a strange issue when handling special characters (as the norwegian letters æ ø å).

I have a table 'tags', with a field 'tag'. If the field-value is "østfold", then I can find the tag using:

mysql> SELECT * FROM tags WHERE tag = "østfold";
+-----+----------+-------+
| id | tag | cnt |
+-----+----------+-------+
| 293 | østfold | 23134 |
+-----+----------+-------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

But using like gives no hits (the same goes for "østfol%"):

mysql> SELECT * FROM tags WHERE tag like "østfold";
Empty set (0.00 sec)

For shorter words, this does not seem to be the case (word "øst"):

USING = :
mysql> SELECT * FROM tags WHERE tag = "øst";
+------+------+-----+
| id | tag | cnt |
+------+------+-----+
| 3855 | øst | 326 |
+------+------+-----+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

USING like :
mysql> SELECT * FROM tags WHERE tag like "øst";
+------+------+-----+
| id | tag | cnt |
+------+------+-----+
| 3855 | øst | 326 |
+------+------+-----+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)


Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have been trying to solve this problem for ages.

Thanks!