php include files

Question

Hello from a complete newbie to PHP5.

I created a header file (html) which contains navigation links.

In another page (index.php) I put an include in the body of the page.

The index page has a link to a css file which styles the navigation links in the include file.

When I view the page, the part where the include is made contains garbled characters (well mostly diamond chars with ? inside).

If I replace the header file with a simplified one with only one div block it displays fine. So I suspect that the include file does not like the style sheet references?!?

I would appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this.

Many thanks,

KS

<div id="header">
<div id="menu">
  <ul id="nav-one" class="nav">
    <li>
      <a href="#">About Us</a>
      <ul>
        <li><a href="about-wcjja.html">About WCJJA</a></li>
        <li><a href="about-wing-chun.html">Wing Chun</a></li>
        <li><a href="history-of-wing-chun.html">History</a></li>
        <li><a href="new.html">What's New</a></li>
        <li><a href="wing-chun-links.html">Links</a></li>
      </ul>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a href="#">Instructors</a>
      <ul>
        <li><a href="marvon-wilkinson.html">Marvon Wilkinson</a></li>
        <li><a href="lineage.html">Lineage</a></li>
      </ul>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a href="#">Classes</a>
      <ul>
        <li><a href="wing-chun-classes.html">Wing Chun</a></li>
        <li><a href="womens-self-defense.html">Women's Self Defense</a></li>
        <li><a href="workshops.html">Seminars &amp; Workshops</a></li>
      </ul>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a href="#item2">Media</a>
      <ul>
        <li><a href="gallery.html">Gallery</a></li>
        <li><a href="videos.html">Video</a></li>
        <li><a href="more-wc.html">More Wing Chun</a></li>
      </ul>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a href="#">Contact Us</a>
      <ul>
        <li><a href="email-us.html">Email Us</a></li>
        <li><a href="schools.html">School Locations</a></li>
        <li><a href="bookmark-us.html">Bookmark us</a></li>
        <li><a href="copyright.html">Copyright</a></li>
      </ul>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div>
</div>

I'd stay it's more likely the encoding of your include file. — Ash Burlaczenko
– Ash Burlaczenko, Commented May 20, 2011 at 21:51
There's almost certainly something wrong with your encoding. Can you edit your question to include the code you are using in the header? — Sean Walsh
– Sean Walsh, Commented May 20, 2011 at 21:52
This could also be an issue not with the included file itself, but with the declared content-type in the final HTML output. — No Results Found
– No Results Found, Commented May 20, 2011 at 21:53

jeroen · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-20 21:52:41Z

2

Sounds like a character encoding issue, what format are your files in? I´d recommend putting everything in utf8

answered May 20, 2011 at 21:52

jeroen

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3 Comments

Perplexed Over a year ago

I think the owner of site is using some char enc that displays chinese. In my css file I have put a declaration for utf-8 and also in my index php file. I have not put one in the include file which consists of divs. Since there is no html or head tag in there I am not sure how to declare the encoding in there. Any ideas? thx.

Perplexed Over a year ago

I think the header file is not having the correct encoding as you guys mentioned. Problem is, how do I declare it's encoding without a header tag? Interesting the IE is the only browser ignores the encoding and renders fine (that could be a bad thing too i guess!).

jeroen Over a year ago

I don´t know what system you're on and what IDE you are using, but if you are on windows, you can use for example Notepad++ and change the encoding to utf8 from the menu.

webbiedave · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-20 21:53:47Z

1

Ensure your content-type header is correct.

You can try:

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

(delete any other content-type headers that may exist)

answered May 20, 2011 at 21:53

webbiedave

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2 Comments

Perplexed Over a year ago

No joy :( there are no other headers, only several divs.

Perplexed Over a year ago

You can view the site here btw - its not top secret :) wcjja.com/design%20fix/index2.php

David Ly · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-20 22:39:50Z

1

The problem is that there are 2 different encodings in the source, and a page may only declare one encoding.

When I view source in Firefox on the header section this is what I see:

��<�d�i�v� �i�d�=�"�h�e�a�d�e�r�"�>�

The format of the header file is probably some double-byte format, maybe UTF-16 maybe something else, but the rest of the page is in UTF-8.

Use a text editor that allows you to choose the encoding of the (header) file and save that file as UTF-8 and that should fix your problem.

edited May 20, 2011 at 22:39

answered May 20, 2011 at 22:34

David Ly

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Comments

Racooon · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-20 22:23:21Z

-1

Just put this code in your .htaccess, you will use utf-8 always anyway.

.htaccess

AddType text/html;charset=utf-8 .html

OR

btw. if u should use XHTML, u would not get an utf-8 problem. set your doctype as xhtml and transitional, it will be utf-8 for all pages automatically.

 <?php header("Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8"); ?>
 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

these tags will save you anytime.

answered May 20, 2011 at 22:23

Racooon

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