Work-around for the UTF-8 bug in DBD::mysql

gistfile1.pl

# We found that we could successfully write ASCII to the db, and the ij-ligature,
# and the unicode snowman, and the unicode pile of poo, and text that included
# i-acute and a pile of poo. But we couldn't write just an i-acute.
#
# This is apparently a long-standing and unfixable bug in DBD::mysql
# (see https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=60987)
#
# This patches DBIx::Class::Storage::DBI to work around the problem.
# It's based on https://gist.github.com/anonymous/c19af1e80dcf7272e6c5
# but we're already monkey-patching DBIx::Class::Storage::DBI::_dbh_execute
# elsewhere in our code, so it makes sense to keep the unmaintainable
# insanity all locked up in one small box

use DBIx::Class::Storage::DBI;
my $old_ex = \&DBIx::Class::Storage::DBI::_dbh_execute;
my $new_ex = sub {
    # we need to mangle $bind:
    # my ($self, $dbh, $sql, $bind, $bind_attrs) = @_;
    #   
    # It looks like ...
    # [ 
    #     ...
    #     [
    #         {
    #             dbic_colname => 'message'
    #         },
    #         'some data with funny foreign characters in it like í',
    #     ],
    #     [
    #         {
    #             dbic_colname => 'method'
    #         },
    #         undef,
    #     ],
    #     ...
    # ] 
    # and we need to edit it in place
    foreach (@{$_[3]}) {
        if(exists($_->[1]) && defined($_->[1])) {
            utf8::upgrade($_->[1])
        }   
    }   
    return $old_ex->(@_);
};

Hasn't yet been particularly thoroughly tested. But it appears to not make the universe explode when I INSERT and then SELECT data with funny foreign characters in.