We're constructing a multi-lingual site using php, mysql and utf-8.
We feel it would be usefull to have a thread to exchange and discuss experiences related to this topic.
In our html application, up to 5 different languages could be displayed on the same page at the same time.
We've choosen utf-8 because it seems to be the future that's already ripe to use now.
We haven't encountered any problems up to now, as long as we stay in utf-8 the whole time. That means both with inserts/updates as well as using <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">.
(we did have to do some utf8_encode()ing on text we imported from existing tables into the new structure.)
Up to now we've only tested it with run of the mill characters like üÜöÖäÄß. We will be testing using Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Arabic characters in about 1-2 months.
We don't expect to experience any problems with data storage, (inserting/updateing), but where we are sure we will see odd results is with order by and the like. That is with data retrieval.
We have mysql 3.23.47, and at least for the forseeable future, aren't able to adjust its configuration. (Dependant on server provider.)
Perhaps there's others out there, who'd like to share their experience(s) with us.
