Mysqlconnector3919: Fix auto update issues that arise in newer versions of MariaDb

[alissa0]

When setting up a new dev environment recently I encountered the same issue described in #3919

Some cursory research lead me to a discussion about this on Stack Overflow

I decided to implement MySqlConnector as an alternative to MySql.Data, but it wasn't a drop-in replacement as it lacks support for the MySqlScript methods (including the StatementExecuted event) so some light refactoring had to be done.

[gmriggs]

Is this a widely-recognized solution, or just switching to another library that doesn't happen to have the issue?

IIRC, I had an issue within the past year when upgrading an existing ACE DB to a newer MariaDB version. I think it was maybe 10.6, but it was over a year ago, and I can't remember the exact version. Anyway, there was an issue with utf8mb4 where it couldn't handle the older table format anymore. I mostly got utf8mb4 errors, but I think I might have seen a similar DBNull error in the mix as well.

I'm not sure if it's the same issue, but I ask because I found a bunch of varied solutions at the time. Some of them involved adjusting or switching MySqlConnector versions, but the cleanest solution I found was to simply upgrade my existing DB to the newer utf8mb4 format.

[alissa0]

I spent a little bit of time trying to find additional information about this but I haven't really been able to find any extensive discussion around this issue aside from the stack overflow thread I linked initially :( I was setting this up under a fresh archlinux installation in WSL2. As far as I can tell, it's using utf8mb4 across the board and I'm running into the issue around collations having NULL ids with the current driver.

So in short I don't think this is a widely recognized solution but the package does seem to be a widely utilized open source alternative to the one provided by Oracle. However, I can understand the hesitation surrounding changing something like this so if there's any additional info I can provide or research avenues I can explore let me know and I'll be happy to help!

[gmriggs]

Okay, this sounds like a different issue than the upgrade one I had last year then.

[Mag-nus]

I haven't spent enough time to give a proper review, but it just feels wrong going from what is the de facto standard for .NET to a 3rd party lib to fix an issue.

What I also found interesting is what we have in there now:

<Target Name="ChangeAliasesOfStrongNameAssemblies" BeforeTargets="FindReferenceAssembliesForReferences;ResolveReferences">
    <ItemGroup>
      <ReferencePath Condition="'%(FileName)' == 'MySqlConnector'">
        <Aliases>MySqlConnectorAlias</Aliases>
      </ReferencePath>
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>

That also is worth a review.