Having trouble finding why I can't set charset to UTF-8 in php

Question

 try{
        echo("trying");//this prints
        mysql_set_charset('utf8'); //if I remove this everything is fine
        echo("success"); //this fails
    }catch(Exception $e){
        echo "problem $e";//this doesn't print
        throw new Exception("can't set charset",0, $e);//this does nothing
    }

I am introducing spanish characters into my otherwise working code and I'm running into a black hole. I have no idea what the problem is because php just goes off into la-la land and does nothing more after the mysql_set_charset('utf8'); line. When that line is commented out everything works perfectly. Where do I go looking for the error logs? I'm not the sysadmin on the server, so, I'm not sure how the php/mysql was configured. It's a linux box, and I'm assuming it's in some standard configuration, but I'm not finding a logs directory anywhere near php, so, I'm unclear on what I can do to figure out what it doesn't like here.

Oh, and without this line the text comes back featuring a black diamond with a question mark in it for every character that is UTF-8... so... that's the issue I'm actually trying to solve. Perhaps there's a different approach?

Check your error logs, there's bound to be one. – deceze Jun 13 '13 at 14:35 — deceze, Jun 13 '13 at 14:35

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 23 '13 at 18:49

0

not sure, but the PHP manual says mysql_set_chartset will be deprecated and removed in the future.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-set-charset.php

that might be the source of your problem.

answered Jul 23 '13 at 18:49

John Smith

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score -1 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 23 '13 at 21:20

-1

I always used this and worked fine. Try it also without single quotes (I can't see the code now):

mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");

Edit

mysql_set_charset() doesn't throw exceptions. It is procedural style. You will find errors by mysql_error().

Note That Using mysql_set_charset is the preferred way to change the charset. Using mysql_query() to set it (such as SET NAMES utf8) is not recommended. Also, using mysqli_set_charset is prefered, as mysql_set_charset is deprecated from PHP 5.5.0. So, don't use mysql_query to set charset, nor use mysql_set_charset. Use instead mysqli_set_charset!

edited Jul 23 '13 at 21:20

Jeromy French

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answered Jun 13 '13 at 07:21

Fanda

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makes no difference. Same issue. But I'd really like to figure out where php logs the error! – Yevgeny Simkin Jun 13 '13 at 07:29

Having trouble finding why I can't set charset to UTF-8 in php

2 Answers2