Encoding problem

[scialom]

Hello,

I have a database with unicode encoding.
Now I have a php script that read files and insert it to the db.
But I have encoding problem and the results is gibrish.

How can I convert the text from the file to unicode?
I've tried something like this:
$preview_text = mb_internal_encoding("UTF-8");
But it doesn't work.

Any ideas?

[Desdinova]

Show us the gibberish

try html_entities() or html_special_chars()

I take it you want to convert é to &eacute;, so you don't get a square or <?> icon.

[scialom]

thanks for your answer. This is what I get for a very long file:
&#255;&#254;1 or &#65533;&#65533;1

So I guess it is more than a problem with special chars
this is a very strange, PM me if you want me to send you the file

[Xager]

Use utf8_encode() and utf8_decode()

EDIT: Just noticed that that only works when the string you enter is iso-8859-1, if you're input string isn't iso have a look at iconv()

[NogDog]

1. Make sure you are "talking" to the database in UTF8 before you run your select queries.

   mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");
   mysql_query("SET CHARACTER SET utf8");
   

2. If you need to manipulate the retrieved text in any way before you output it, you'll need to use the [man]mbstring[/man] extension to deal with it.

3. If outputting UTF8, make sure your content-type encoding is set. If you do this, do not use [man]htmlentities/man, but instead only use [man]htmlspecialchars/man.

   <?php
   // before any output is sent:
   header('Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8');
   // get text from DB, then:
   echo htmlspecialchars($text);