PHP mail() Charset Problem

daredevil14 · Mar 27, 2009

Hello,

I am using a php page ( HTML "UTF-8" charset ), which sends an AJAX request as "UTF-8", to a mailer page which simply sends a message to a certain Hotmail account... the problem is that the message cannot be read, it contains weird symbols, but everything is set to "UTF-8" and i tried to give a php header charset as "UTF-8" to the mailer page itself, but nothing worked...

Any help ?

Krik · Mar 28, 2009

Why are setting it as UTF-8?

Do you have to use that charset or is it one you just chose?

If you must set the charset have you tried other standard character sets?

Lastly it may help if we saw the code, for it, as it could be something as simple as a typo causing the hassle.

daredevil14 · Mar 28, 2009

I am using UTF-8 because of Arabic language... I have to...

I tried other charsets including "arabic-1256" but nothing seems to work...

the codes are :

Contact.php

<html>
<head>

<script src="include/http_request.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--

function send_message()
{
var xmlhttp = getxmlobject();
if ( xmlhttp == null )
  {
  alert("Your Browser Does Not Support HTTP Requests");
  return;
  }
var name = document.getElementById("name").value;
var location = document.getElementById("location").value;
var email = document.getElementById("email").value;
var email_regex = /^[\w\-\.\+]+\@[a-zA-Z0-9\.\-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{2,4}$/;
var subject = document.getElementById("subject").value;
var message = document.getElementById("message").value;
if ( name.length == 0 || location.length == 0 ||  email.length == 0 || subject.length == 0 || message.length == 0 )
  {
  alert("ÙƒÙ„ Ø§Ù„Ø*Ù‚ÙˆÙ„ Ø§Ø²Ø§Ù…ÙŠØ©");
  return;
  }

if ( !email.match(email_regex) )
  {
  alert("Ø§Ù„Ø¨Ø±ÙŠØ¯ Ø§Ù„Ø§Ù„ÙƒØªØ±ÙˆÙ†ÙŠ ØºÙŠØ± ØµØ§Ù„Ø*");
  document.getElementById("email").focus();
  return;
  }

var url = "include/mailer.php";
var ran = Math.random();
var dt = "name=" + escape(name) + "&location=" + escape(location) + "&email=" + escape(email) + "&subject=" + escape(subject) + "&message=" + escape(message) + "&ran=" + ran;
xmlhttp.open("POST",url,true);
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function statechange()
  {
  if ( xmlhttp.readyState == 4 || xmlhttp.readyState == "complete" )
    {
    document.getElementById("name").value = "";
    document.getElementById("location").value = "";
    document.getElementById("email").value = "";
    document.getElementById("subject").value = "";
    document.getElementById("message").value = "";

document.getElementById("name").disabled = true;
document.getElementById("location").disabled = true;
document.getElementById("email").disabled = true;
document.getElementById("subject").disabled = true;
document.getElementById("message").disabled = true;
document.getElementById("reset").disabled = true;
document.getElementById("send").disabled = true;

alert(xmlhttp.responseText);
}
  }
xmlhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8");
xmlhttp.send(dt);
}

//-->

</script>

<style>
<!-- 
body {scrollbar-face-color: #5C7B98; scrollbar-shadow-color: #5C7B98; scrollbar-highlight-color: #FFFFFF; scrollbar-3dlight-color: #5C7B98; scrollbar-darkshadow-color: #5C7B98; scrollbar-track-color: #E2D6C0; scrollbar-arrow-color: #FFFFFF;}
}
// -->
</style>

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="include/style.css" />
<title>:: Ø§Ù„Ù…ÙˆÙ‚Ø¹ Ø§Ù„Ø±Ø³Ù…ÙŠ Ù„Ø¹Ù„Ù…Ø§Ø¡ Ù…Ø¯ÙŠÙ†Ø© ØµÙˆØ± ::</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" background="images/texture.jpg" link="#5C7B98" vlink="#5C7B98" alink="#5C7B98">
<a href="index.php"><img src="images/index.gif" border="0" width="1002" height="203" alt=""></a>
<table width="996" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" mm:layoutgroup="true" height="575">
  <tr> 
    <td height="10" valign="top" colspan="4">
    <p align="center"><font size="5"><b>

<?php

require("include/connection.php");

$sql = "SELECT * FROM tbl_marquees WHERE mid=10";

mysql_query("SET NAMES 'UTF8'"); 
mysql_query('SET CHARACTER SET UTF8'); 

if ( $res = mysql_query($sql, $conn) )
  {
  $result = mysql_fetch_array($res);
  }

?>

<marquee direction="right" onmouseover="this.stop()" onmouseout="this.start()"><?php echo $result["mtxt"]; ?></marquee></font></b></td></td>
  </tr>
  <tr> 
    <td valign="top" height="442" colspan="3">

<div id="div" style="overflow: auto; width: 820; height: 425; border: 2 solid; text-align: center;  padding: 12px"><br />

<form method="">
<table>
<tr>
<td align="center"><font size="4"><b>Ø§Ù„Ø£Ø³Ù…</b></font></td>
<td><input type="text" dir="rtl" id="name" name="name" maxlength="50" /></td>
</tr>

<tr><td align="center"><font size="4"><b>Ø§Ù„Ø¹Ù†ÙˆØ§Ù†</b></font></td><td align="right"><input type="text" dir="rtl" id="location" name="location" maxlength="50" /></td></tr>

<tr><td align="center"width="120"><font size="4"><b>Ø§Ù„Ø¨Ø±ÙŠØ¯ Ø§Ù„Ø§Ù„ÙƒØªØ±ÙˆÙ†ÙŠ</b></font></td><td align="right"><input type="text" id="email" name="email" maxlength="50" /></td></tr>

<tr><td align="center"><font size="4"><b>Ø§Ù„Ù…ÙˆØ¶ÙˆØ¹</b></font></td><td align="right"><input type="text" dir="rtl" id="subject" name="subject" maxlength="50" /></td></tr>

<tr><td align="center"><font size="4"><b>Ø§Ù„Ø±Ø³Ø§Ù„Ø©</b></font></td><td><textarea dir="rtl" cols="35" rows="7" id="message" name="message"></textarea></td></tr>

<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

<tr><td></td><td align="center"><input type="reset" id="reset" name="reset" value="Ù…Ø³Ø*" />&nbsp;<input type="button" id="send" name="send" onclick="send_message()" value="Ø£Ø±Ø³Ù„" /></td></tr>

</table>
</form>

</div>


</td>
    <td valign="top" width="166" height="450">
    <p align="center">
    <img border="0" src="images/menu.gif" width="150" height="49">
      <p align="center"> <a href="structure.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(1).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="members.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(2).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="articles.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(3).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="audio.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(4).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="speechs.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(5).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="news.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(6).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="queries.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(7).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="library.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(9).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="forums/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(10).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="contact.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(8).gif" width="145" height="29"></a><a href="sitemap.php"><img border="0" src="images/Button%20(11).gif" width="145" height="29"></a> 
      <p align="center">
    <img border="0" src="images/menu%20end.gif" width="150" height="11"></td>
  </tr>

  <tr> 
    <td height="0" colspan="4" valign="top">
    <img border="0" src="images/low.gif" width="993" height="30">

<div align="center"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Copyright &copy; 2009 – All Rights Reserved</b></font></div><br />
<div align="center"><font size="2">Designed By <b><a href="mailto:xxxxx@hotmail.com">Bilal Baroud</a></b> – Developed By <b><a href="mailto:xxxxx@hotmail.com">Raed Abou Saleh</a></b></font></div>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Please don't worry about the weird characters, they are displayed fine...

mailer.php

<?php

require("connection.php");

$sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tbl_contact");

if ( $sql && $conn )
  {
  $result = mysql_fetch_array($sql);
  $to = strtolower($result["email"]);
  }
else
  {
  $to = "xxxxx@hotmail.com";
  }

$from = ucfirst($_POST["name"]);
$subject = ucwords($_POST["subject"]);
$message = "Name : ". $from ."\nLocation : ". ucwords($_POST["location"]) ."\ne-mail : ". $to . "\n\nMessage : ". ucfirst($_POST["message"]);
$headers = $from;

$mail = mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);

if ( $mail )
  {
  echo "ØªÙ… Ø§Ø±Ø³Ø§Ù„ Ø§Ù„Ø±Ø³Ø§Ù„Ø© Ø¨Ù†Ø¬Ø§Ø*";
  }
else
  {
  echo "Ù„Ù… ØªÙ†Ø¬Ø* Ù…Ø*Ø§ÙˆÙ„Ø© Ø§Ø±Ø³Ø§Ù„ Ø§Ù„Ø±Ø³Ø§Ù„Ø©";
  }

?>

So the message is being successfuly sent, but as weird and not arabic characters...

Thanks for helping,
Raed

Krik · Mar 28, 2009

Try setting the charset in the mail() header. I am guessing PHP has different charset as its default for the mail() function

$headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";

Copied that from mail() on php.net

daredevil14 · Mar 29, 2009

didn't work, actually even if I select any encoding from right click => encoding... the characters remain the same, even if I switch from arabic to english to turkish!! the point is that the characters remain the same, so i guess it's not a mailer encoding problem, any help ?

Krik · Mar 29, 2009

Please don't worry about the weird characters, they are displayed fine...

That statement got me thinking. If you see them as odd looking characters, like I am, it means your browser is not set to UTF-8. When I set my browser to UTF-8 I can see arabic letters.

Which raises the question of how you are viewing the email. So if your viewing the email in your browser make sure it is set to UTF-8. And if it is an email program like Thunderbird or Outlook you may also need to change it to view UTF-8.

After that if you are still having issues I would only guess something is happening on the server side.

daredevil14 · Mar 30, 2009

After that if you are still having issues I would only guess something is happening on the server side.

yes you are right, I am still having an issue, because as I said, I tried all the available encoding when reading the email ( by changing them when right clicking and selecting encoding... )

I meant by those weird characters, that they are displayed weird in the source code only and not in the output... so it is a weird problem... everything is set to UTF-8 and still, weird characters such as "%u0631"

Any help would really be appreciated...

PHP mail() Charset Problem

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