Problem with greek characters

mikawhat

$news = @mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(contents.ctitle, 60),contents.ctext, contents.id, DATE_FORMAT(contents.ctextdate, '%d/%m/%Y') as date FROM contents, category, contentcategory WHERE contents.id=contentcategory.contentid AND category.id=contentcategory.categoryid AND contents.lang='gr' AND category.name='press' ORDER BY contents.ctextdate DESC LIMIT 3");

$num = mysql_num_rows($news);
while ($n= mysql_fetch_array($news)) {
$title = $n['LEFT(contents.ctitle, 60)'];
$date = $n['date'];
$id = $n[2];
if (strlen($title) == 60) {
   $title .= "...";
}
...more code....

When the contetns are in english there's no problem, but when they are in greek language, just before those ... added, some othe characters are added as well. Can anybody suggest a solution for this problem? Thanx!

bogu

Use the same character set ....

mikawhat

what u mean?

bogu

Your html page have:

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

If u add content in your DB using phpmyadmin, that have charset too..
If u add content in your html page using an editor that have charset too...
If to of this have different charset your characters wont be recognize ...

mikawhat

i'm adding the contetns from a cms. I'm using utf-8 for both the cms and the page that displays them...

bogu

If u use the same charset u shouldnt encounter any problem ...

mikawhat

i'm using this on both:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
it should be ok?

MarkR

Ensure that:

a) The browser is interpreting pages in the appropriate encoding
b) PHP's own stuff internally is in the right encoding - this includes static text in PHP files, includes, templates etc
c) The database connection is using the correct encoding (In MySQL, use SET NAMES to set this when connecting to be sure)
d) The database tables themselves are in the right encoding - and ALL consistent (For example, before you create any of the tables do ALTER DATABASE DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 (in MySQL 4.1+)
e) You are using a collation appropriate to your language in the database - and understand what it is and its effects on e.g. case sensitivity

Then you should have no problems unless you are also accessing the database via a naive or broken application which is using the wrong encodings for something (e.g. PHPMyAdmin very likely).

Mark