Problem retrieving French text data in MS SQL 2000

Herten

Hello,

Here's my problem : I previously used PHP with IIS5 on a Win2k Server. The Database was (and still is) on a NT4 server, MS SQL 2000.
The application I've made connects to that database, which has tables with French text in them, i.e. with special characters and accents like é, à, etc. It worked fine.
Now I've installed on my workstation (W2k) the EasyPHP bundle, includes PHP, Apache and MySQL. The application works fine, except that it doesn't retrieve the French characters correctly anymore ! I get ',' '.' or other special characters, but not the correct ones ! Although in the DataBase they are correct (checked through Enterprise Manager).

I've tried tweaking the httpd.conf and php.ini files, tried the htmlentities() functions to no avail : the result set doesn't give me the correct characters.

Anyone has an idea ? Please that would really help me as I don't know what to do...
Thanks !
Herten

MrAlaska

It doesn't seem like EasyPHP would mess with French characters, it's a French application. Their home page is FULL of French characters! (Probably a few French characters in their home office, too)

The result set should spit out whatever was in the database, unless told to do something else with it. What do you see when you view the source of the display page? Do the erroneous characters show up exactly as they are in the browser, or is there something there that the browser might be tripping over?

EDIT: I read this question again, and realize I may have been reading it wrong the first time. On your work station, you are using your own PHP server but still connecting to the MSSQL database?

Herten

What do you see when you view the source of the display page? Do the erroneous characters show up exactly as they are in the browser, or is there something there that the browser might be tripping over

Like I said, instead of the regular French characters (à, é, etc), I see either other weird characters or . , etc as well in the browser as in the source page.
If instead I use an echo ("French characters"); -> it works. So this is really coming from the connection to the MS SQL Database (php_mssql.dll maybe ?).

EDIT: I read this question again, and realize I may have been reading it wrong the first time. On your work station, you are using your own PHP server but still connecting to the MSSQL database?

Exactly. I use another PHP server (Apache, the one installed with EasyPHP), but connect to the SAME MSSQL Database Server. The datas in the DB are NOT altered, so the problem has to come either from Apache, PHP or the DB Connection between PHP and MSSQL...
And there I'm stuck 🙁

Thanks for your help
Herten

MrAlaska

I'm afraid I wasn't much help, but at least I understand the question now! 😃

I think you are right, I would suspect the drivers PHP is using to connect to MSSQL, but I would not know how to go about finding, updating, or fixing them.

You could rule out Apache by setting up your local MySql server and seeing if you can pull the characters out of that database.

Edit: (reading again) Actually you already rulled out Apache by doing the echo. Much more better than my suggestion 🙂

Herten

I'm afraid I wasn't much help, but at least I understand the question now!

LOL 🙂

You could rule out Apache by setting up your local MySql server and seeing if you can pull the characters out of that database.

That's interesting, I shall try that as MySql is also installed locally...
Will try it.

Edit: (reading again) Actually you already rulled out Apache by doing the echo. Much more better than my suggestion

Mmmhhh not so sure. You idea would better show if there's really a connection problem between PHP and MSSQL, in case it works with MySql.

If anybody has another idea that would be great !

xeYe

I am experiencing this problem on a win2k server with php4+iis+mssql7 here using german and french texts.

We have run the software on php4+apache+mysql and imported text data from various latin1 encoded languages via sql statements. Enterprise Manager and Query Analyzer both display the special characters like ä, ö, à as they should appear, but once in php, the characters are recoded as it some software thinks the output should be done with another character encoding.

This translation is happening in both directions (php->mssql and mssql->php) - tested with text input/output with data stored in mssql inbetween. Apparently though, some characters cannot be correctly recoded, so the output doesn't correspond for some of the special characters.

I did not find any way to influence on how the mssql db access in php can be configured concerning character sets - no hint in the accompanying files, no #define in the source, no function call or parameter to set character encoding.

Any more hints on where to look? IIS/PHP language settings perhaps? entries in the registries?

If I find something out, I'll let you know. This ought to be a common problem for non-english php/mssql users.