UTF8mb4 encoding MySQL and PHP diagnosis for '€' symbol

Question

I have a problem extracting data from my MYSQL UTF8mb4_general_ci database with PHP as some characters (linke the '€' symbol and emojis) are not echoed correctly in the browser.

Here is the situation:

the database is encoded in UTF8mb4_general_ci
the table is encoded in UTF8mb4_general_ci
the column is encoded in UTF8mb4_general_ci
the string extracted from the record has been written straight from phpmyadmin
mysqli encoding has been set to utf8mb4_general_ci

Here's the code:

mysqli_set_charset($db_connection,"utf8mb4_general_ci");

strange fact: PHP mb_detect_encoding($string_from_db) does not return any value
the PHP script is encoded in UTF8
the browser displays correctly the '€' symbol echoed from php

For example:

echo('€'); // displays € correctly

the browser does not display the '€' symbol echoed from the db

For example:

echo($db_value); //does not echo '€' but rather ?

there is a PHP header specifying the content type is text/html UTF8
the html is set to UTF8 through the meta charset tag

What am I missing?

I checked the other posts on stack overflow but they don't answer my question.

If you store a € from a PHP script do you get it back correctly from a select? — RiggsFolly, Sep 30 '22 at 15:51
I stored it through phpmyadmin, and I don't get it back correctly (although it displays correctly inside phpmyadmin) — Luca Pennisi, Sep 30 '22 at 15:53
So write a quick INSERT in PHP and see what happens to the euro then — RiggsFolly, Sep 30 '22 at 15:55
Ouch! it's messed up! adding the '€' symbol from PHP into the db shows some strange characters in phpmyadmin! How's that possible? — Luca Pennisi, Sep 30 '22 at 15:58
it's possible when you mess up some of the steps described in your post. Some of them are not the way you think they are — Your Common Sense, Sep 30 '22 at 16:06
ah. I even know which one. UTF8mb4_general_ci is not encoding. — Your Common Sense, Sep 30 '22 at 16:34
For further debugging help, see the `SELECT hex(col)` suggestion in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38363566/trouble-with-utf8-characters-what-i-see-is-not-what-i-stored — Rick James, Sep 30 '22 at 17:27

UTF8mb4 encoding MySQL and PHP diagnosis for '€' symbol

0 Answers0