Get UTF-8 string from MySQL via PHP returned "????????"

Question

In MySQL I have a string, which is displayed properly in phpmyadmin, with the collation set to utf8_general_ci .

In the PHP file, I have set the header using plain HTML:

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

The php files are hosted on Ubuntu, Apache 2.2, and the files are saved in UTF-8 without BOM (using Notepad++)

I have set the connection to use utf8:

@mysql_query("set names 'utf8'", $this->link);
$r = @mysql_query($query, $this->link);

it returns the string ( varchar 255 ) and using PHP echo , it is displayed to the browser.

However, I am still getting ????? instead of the actual words.

I can't seem to be able to searched for what I might have missed, your help is much appreciated.

===== Edit =====

Database, table and column can have three different collations, I have set them all to utf8_general_ci , and calling mysql_set_charset('utf8') immediately after the connection is made, have solved my problem.

I hope this will act as a useful checklist for future people bumping into the same problem. I for one may very well return in a few months to check if I have missed anything :)

Thanks all for the great input.

Was the data inserted using a UTF-8 pipeline to begin with? Even if the output pipeline is correctly utf8 throughout, the data might have been corrupted before/during database insertion. — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 15:35
Do you have other text (not from database) correct or in question marks too? — Your Common Sense
– Your Common Sense, Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 15:43
@tandu I inserted the unicode text in phpmyadmin directly. Will that cause problem? — Gapton
– Gapton, Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 16:12

zessx · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-13 15:39:43Z

2

Be sure your table is in utf8_general_ci. Database and tables can have a different charset (can happen when you change it by yourself).

And be careful with some functions, like htmlentities, which have a default charset parameter set to ISO-8859-1 for PHP <5.4.0 (set to UTF-8 for PHP >5.4.0)

http://php.net/manual/en/function.htmlentities.php

answered Mar 13, 2012 at 15:39

zessx

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3 Comments

Explosion Pills Over a year ago

Could be wrong, but I believe PHP 5.3 updated the default charset parameters to UTF-8 for these functions.

zessx Over a year ago

Here is the useful part of PHP doc :

Like htmlspecialchars(), htmlentities() takes an optional third argument encoding which defines encoding used in conversion. If omitted, the default value for this argument is ISO-8859-1 in versions of PHP prior to 5.4.0, and UTF-8 from PHP 5.4.0 onwards. Although this argument is technically optional, you are highly encouraged to specify the correct value for your code.

Gapton Over a year ago

Thanks. I was not aware of the fact that the Database, Table, Column can have 3 different collations. I have set all to utf8_general_ci , plus setting the correct charset as @jeroen suggested, have solved the problem.

jeroen · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-13 15:35:52Z

2

I think the quotes around 'utf8' are wrong, but either way, you can just use:

mysql_set_charset('utf8');

And suppressing errors with the @ operator when you are looking for them, is not a good idea.

answered Mar 13, 2012 at 15:35

jeroen

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Comments

makriria · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-13 15:47:11Z

-1

Check something like this before the query

mysql_query('SET character_set_results=utf8');
mysql_query('SET names=utf8');
mysql_query('SET character_set_client=utf8');
mysql_query('SET character_set_connection=utf8');
mysql_query('SET character_set_results=utf8');
mysql_query('SET collation_connection=utf8_general_ci');

answered Mar 13, 2012 at 15:47

makriria

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1 Comment

Your Common Sense Over a year ago

this is way overkill. set names alone is enough

Pedro Teran · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-13 16:11:35Z

-1

you can use this to encode the strings to UTF-8 so it will not get ???, but will change the non urf-8 characters like this /u003. so you can decode it later to present it on a text

while($var=mysql_fetch_assoc($r)){
           $e['columnI']=utf8_encode($e['columnI']);

answered Mar 13, 2012 at 16:11

Pedro Teran

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