UTF-8 with mysql and php in freebsd swedish chars (åäö)

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Possible Duplicate:
UTF-8 all the way through

Hi I recently switched from linux to freebsb on my server, and now my database is acting up.

When I try to echo a string containing å,ä or ö (swedish letters) it becomes a questionmark. ie: Söndag becomes S�ndag. echo "ä"; works. $ file --mime test.php test.php: text/plain; charset=utf-8

test.php

<?php
$a="å";
mysql_connect("localhost", "root", ":-)");
mysql_select_db("lidev");

$result=mysql_query("select * from DLG where dag='Onsdag'");
$row=mysql_fetch_array($result);

echo $row['dagens'];
echo "<br>";
echo mb_detect_encoding($row['dagens']);
?>

mb_detect_encoding() outputs "UTF-8" My mysql table is in utf8_general_ci.

I'm completely stuck! What's wrong?

Cheers!

If you write `echo "ä";` in a php file, and it comes out as `�`, then you didn't **save the file as UTF-8**. Is this the case? — Esailija, Jun 20 '12 at 13:34
You need to put `header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8'); ` in the php files you are using `echo` in — Alex W, Jun 20 '12 at 13:39
withHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json;charset=utf-8;') — ZiaUllahZia, Oct 17 '17 at 09:41

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 20 '12 at 13:38

seems like you're not using utf-8 everywhere so your data got messed up at some point. depending on what exactly you're doing, you'll have to change/add one or more of the following points (most likely it's the SET CHARSET/mysql_set_charset you forgot):

tell MySQL to use utf-8. to do this, add this to your my.cnf:

collation_server = utf8_unicode_ci
character_set_server = utf8

before interacting with mysql, send this two querys:

SET NAMES 'utf8';
CHARSET 'utf8';

or, alternatively, let php do this after opening the connection:

mysql_set_charset('utf8', $conn); // when using the mysql_-functions
mysqli::set_charset('utf8') // when using mysqli

set UTF-8 as the default charset for your database

CREATE DATABASE `my_db` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET 'utf8';

do the same for tables:

CREATE TABLE `my_table` (
  -- ...
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

assuming the client is a browser, serve your content as utf-8 and the the correct header:
```
header('Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
```
to be really sure the browser understands, add a meta-tag:
```
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
```
and, last but not least, tell the browser to submit forms using utf-8
```
<form accept-charset="utf-8" ...>
```

when i started writing this, there was no "close as duplicate"-vote and i won't delete an answer just because i recognise this later, as it might still be helpful. indeed, you're right: this question is a duplicate and that's why i also voted to close it. — oezi, Jun 20 '12 at 13:44

UTF-8 with mysql and php in freebsd swedish chars (åäö)

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