Alternative to manual "SET NAMES utf8" on every database call

Question

I have Japanese on my site coming from a mysql database.

Other Japanese text on the site displays fine, but the stuff coming out of the database looks like:

 ????????

The database is set to UTF8, so is the web page.

To fix the issue, before I make any calls to the database I use:

$db->query("SET NAMES utf8");

I was wondering if there was a better/easier way to do the above without having to set names before every query?

So, `SET NAMES utf8` fixes the issue or not? (All decent DB libraries allow to set client encoding, check the documentation for yours.) — Álvaro González, Mar 13 '13 at 15:11
Set set names does fix the issue, i was just wondering if there was a better way. — panthro, Mar 13 '13 at 15:23
You only need that once per connection, not before every query. Also, if you use [PDO](http://php.net/pdo), you can configure it so that it does that automatically for you. — Fabian Schmengler, Mar 13 '13 at 15:25

zessx · Answer 1 · 2013-03-13T15:42:43.077

1

You don't have to use SET NAMES utf8 before every query, you just have to run it once the connection is established. Here's an example with PDO :

try {
    $dns  = "mysql:host={HOST};dbname={DB}";
    $user = "{USER}";
    $pass = "{PASS}";
    $con = new PDO($dns, $user, $pass);
} catch ( Exception $e ) {
    echo "Connexion error ", $e->getMessage();
    die();
}

$con->query("SET NAMES utf8;");
//and now, as many queries as you want

If you're using PHP >= 5.3.6, you can define the charset in the connection string (prior PHP versions ignore it) :

try {
    $dns  = "mysql:host={HOST};dbname={DB};charset=utf8";
    $user = "{USER}";
    $pass = "{PASS}";
    $con = new PDO($dns, $user, $pass);
} catch ( Exception $e ) {
    echo "Connexion error ", $e->getMessage();
    die();
}

//and now, as many queries as you want

edited Mar 13 '13 at 15:42

answered Mar 13 '13 at 15:27

zessx

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But I have many database connections in different models, if you dont call set names before each one it doesnt work. – panthro Mar 13 '13 at 15:29
PDO provides a better way to set encoding. And we don't really know if he's using PDO or not: he hasn't said it. – Álvaro González Mar 13 '13 at 15:33
@ÁlvaroG.Vicario Right, I added the connection string way in my post. – zessx Mar 13 '13 at 15:45
@user1013512 You should centralize all those connections in a single one, to avoid this kind of problem. – zessx Mar 13 '13 at 15:46

Alternative to manual "SET NAMES utf8" on every database call

1 Answers1