[RESOLVED] Diacritics - first character of a var not showing

Feki

Hello,
I have experienced a problem when reading a CSV-like text file. The file contains some values with Slovak characters, I am using the Windows-1250 encoding for both the script and the input file. The structure of a line from this file looks like:

data1 ;data2    ;data3;...;datan;

I am iterating over the file using the fgetcsv() function, which saves the values from a row into an array. Then I extract some of the values I need for further processing like this:

$sutaz = trim($dvojica[1], " ");

- the columns have fixed width, so i need to trim() the spaces. When I print the values into the basic output (echo, just for testing purposes) everything is working fine, the characters with diacritics are shown correctly, but with a small exception - if a value (especially a surname) begins with a capital letter with diacritics (mostly Š or Ž), the first letter is simply not shown - the surname is printed as "vec" instead of "Švec". After reading a lot of posts I am still not sure if a string can begin with such a special character, or how to solve this problem.

Thanks in advance and sorry for my English 🙂

Markieham

It's probably caused by some sort of encoding, resulting in a code like "¡" instead of the first character. (the ; in there breaks the name)

I can't think of a way to prevent this, other then changing the delimiters but then again - ";" is one of the standards with csv files so that might not be an option..

Sorry I can't help you more 🙁

Weedpacket

It does sound like some sort of encoding issue, as Markieham suggests.

Could you attach some code that replicates the problem (just the relevant part - reading the file, trimming it, displaying it, and having the problem) and some (faked-up) sample data for us to test with? Attached, rather than posted inline, so that the encoding isn't changed.

It's even slightly possible that in the process of doing the above you'll find the problem (or at least, find something that works).

Feki

Hi,
the problem disappeared after reinstall of Apache and PHP on localhost.

Thanks for your answers

Feki