Storing arabic text in mysql database

I had similar problem with Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition.
Instead of playing with collation I have used two simple methods :

string encodeString(string word)
{
    string result = string.Empty;

    char [] letters = (word.Normalize()).ToCharArray();

    foreach (char letter in letters)
    {
        result += ((short)letter).ToString("00000");
        result += " ";
    }
    return (result.Trim()).Normalize();
}

string decodeString(string word)
{
    string result = string.Empty;

    string [] letters = word.Split(' ');

    int code = 0;

    foreach (string letter in letters)
    {
        code = short.Parse(letter);
        result += ((char)code).ToString();
    }
    return result.Normalize();
}

Use dataGridView class type object
for collecting and representing data.

Before writing data from dataGridView fields to Sql data base table fields,
use string encodeString(string word) method to encode data to
simple series of ascii codes.

Before representing data from Sql data base table fields to user,
use string decodeString(string word) method to decode data
from series of ascii codes to normal strings.

It is now possible to save text written in Arabic or any other language
to Sql data base with collation set to Cyrillic_General_CI_AS
or any other collation.



All the best,
Željko Perić