Sending/retriving arabic charecters (utf8) using json from android to server

Question

I'm trying to store Arabic characters in a database on server. But when I add something it will be displayed as ???????????? in the database! I tried too add from my php to check if the problem from the php file, but it added the text correctly in database. So the error from android and json, how can I make the encoding of json to utf8 in android?

Here's my code:

    class AddStories extends AsyncTask<String, String, String> {


    protected String doInBackground(String... args) {


        List<NameValuePair> params = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
        params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("Caregiver_ID", ID));
        params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("Title", "قصة"));
        params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("Story", "قصتي بدأت عندما"));

        JSONObject json = jsonParser.makeHttpRequest(url_add_story,"POST", params);

        Log.d("Create Response", json.toString());

        try {
            int success = json.getInt(TAG_SUCCESS);

            if (success == 1) {
                suc=1;

                sucess();


            }
            else {
                suc=0;
            }
        } catch (JSONException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return null;
    }
}

PHP for adding:

  <?php
  header("Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8");


 // array for JSON response
 $response = array();

 // check for required fields
 if (isset($_POST['Caregiver_ID'])  && isset($_POST['Title'])&& isset($_POST['Story'])) {

$Caregiver_ID = $_POST['Caregiver_ID'];
$Title = $_POST['Title'];
$Story = $_POST['Story'];

// include db connect class
require_once __DIR__ . '/db_connect.php';

// connecting to db
$db = new DB_CONNECT();
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'"); mysql_query('SET CHARACTER SET utf8');

// mysql inserting a new row
$result = mysql_query("INSERT INTO Stories(Caregiver_ID, Title, Story) VALUES('$Caregiver_ID', '$Title','$Story')");

// check if row inserted or not
if ($result) {
    // successfully inserted into database
    $response["success"] = 1;
    $response["message"] = "glossary successfully created.";

    // echoing JSON response
    echo json_encode($response,JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE );
} else {
    // failed to insert row
    $response["success"] = 0;
    $response["message"] = "Oops! An error occurred.";

    // echoing JSON response
    echo json_encode($response);
}
} else {
// required field is missing
$response["success"] = 0;
$response["message"] = "Required field(s) is missing";

// echoing JSON response
echo json_encode($response );
}
?>

Also when I tried to retrieve from android I got this for the text:

  نةيىؤتيلالاؤتيلاارلابارابي-الالالتعا

while its retrieved correctly in php.

PHP code

  <?php
  header("Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8");

  $response = array();
  require_once __DIR__ . '/db_connect.php';
  $db = new DB_CONNECT();
  $result = mysql_query("SELECT *FROM Stories ") or die(mysql_error());
  mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'"); mysql_query('SET CHARACTER SET utf8');

  if (mysql_num_rows($result) > 0) {
  $response["story"] = array();

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $story = array();
    $story ["Caregiver_ID"] = $row["Caregiver_ID"];
    $story ["Title"] = mb_convert_encoding($row["Title"],'HTML-ENTITIES','utf-8');
    $story ["Story"] = mb_convert_encoding($row["Story"],'HTML-ENTITIES','utf-8');

    array_push($response["story"], $story);
}

$response["success"] = 1;
echo json_encode($response);
  } else {
// no products found
$response["success"] = 0;
$response["message"] = "No locations found";

// echo no users JSON
echo json_encode($response);
  }
  ?>

Answer 1

Try below code in android

ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

try {
    response = client.execute(httpGet);
    HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
    InputStream stream = entity.getContent();
    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
    int nread;
    while ((nread = stream.read(buffer)) > 0) {
        baos.write(buffer, 0, nread);             
    }
} catch (ClientProtocolException | IOException e) {
}
//Create a JSON from the String that was return.
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject();
try {
    String jsonText = new String(baos.toByteArray(), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
    jsonObject = new JSONObject(jsonText);

Answer 2

You have to put N before the columns which you need to add the Arabic text. For example N'مختار'.

Answer 3

According to your code,you should change this line $result = mysql_query("INSERT INTO Stories(Caregiver_ID, Title, Story) VALUES('$Caregiver_ID', '$Title','$Story')"); ........ ..... ... to be $result = mysql_query("INSERT INTO Stories(Caregiver_ID, Title, Story) VALUES('$Caregiver_ID', N'$Title',N'$Story')");