Escaping characters before insert into database

Question

I want to convert some characters before inserting them into database for example

Ž, Ć

I get data from post, and sanitize it on this whay

$ime =  (string) htmlentities(mysql_real_escape_string($data['txtIme']), ENT_COMPAT,'UTF-8', true);

In some reason I get still Ž, Š into my database

Don't, you'll get into a horrible mess eventually : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/279170/utf-8-all-the-way-through — CD001, Feb 18 '15 at 13:56
Why do you want them encoded ? Your database hasn't the correct character set ? — Marc Brillault, Nov 19 '16 at 20:03

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 18 '15 at 13:56

Depending on what you want to convert them to, mysql_set_charset() might the function you need to use. Using UTF-8 encoding, you can store most non-Standard characters, too.

However you should be careful with the mysql Extension, as it is deprecated. You should take a look at mysqli or PDO instead.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 18 '15 at 14:13

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

all characters which have HTML character entity equivalents are translated into these entities

If you look at http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

Ž, Ć don't have HTML character entity equivalents. Š does. Which is why

<?php
     $string = 'In some reason I get still Ž, Š, Ć into my database';
     echo htmlentities($string, ENT_COMPAT,'UTF-8', true);
?>

Produces:

$ php utf.php
In some reason I get still Ž, &Scaron;, Ć into my database

Escaping characters before insert into database

2 Answers2