[RESOLVED] whitespaces at database and strange characters at front end..

ugurpc

I have a simple text submit form.
it uses tinymce editor at textare and stores that data to mysql database.

But sometimes i see at database many whitespaces between words and 
as an example see below pls.:

III.** Approval of Minutes:****** (1) Director Vurd moves to accept the September Board Meeting minutes aspresented, Roll call vote,****** Ayes: Directors Ahmed, vurd, deliavski, Briggs, Allen and Treppa****** Nays: President Bryant****** Motion carried.IV.* Income Statements:********* Treasurer’s

is shown at fron end like �
and those whitespaces are shown at front end like ������ according to the number os space..

I call with the foolowing code to front end :

echo nl2br ('<div>'.$row_announcements['announcements'].'</div>')

i also tried

function convert ($text) {
$text = trim($text);
return '<p>' . preg_replace('/[\r\n]+/', '</p><p>', $text) . '</p>';
}
$text = $row_announcements['announcements'];
echo convert($text);

But i still see those strange charecters ����

What can i do ?

ugurpc

Note : You can see whitespaces at above example as * this forms did them as

Derokorian

Trying using [man]htmlentities[/man] when outputting the information. I'm guessing its special characters, possibly also an incorrect encoding in the database.

NogDog

In case it helps, here's something I wrote up several years ago when I encountered similar issues: http://www.ebookworm.us/utf8-in-php-and-mysql/

PS: Warning: that was long enough ago that I was still using the mysql_*() functions. 😉

ugurpc

Thank you Derokorian htmlentities() didnt solve my problem,
I was working on this problem still and started to clean database (i lost many time )

But Very thanks NogDog, I have read your one page article

After that I checked my UTF connections at my script for database, data input page and for output page.
All of them was ready for UTF8 already,

But when i add the following line to my connect.php file

mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8' COLLATE 'utf8_unicode_ci'");

Output page worked very well all strange characters have gone !

Thanks NogDog so much.
One line saved much time for me..

This article will be very useful to me also everytime..

ugurpc

I clicked this thread has been resolved, True it is resolved ,
But I have now one small problem.

e.g. at database there is e.g.

Bridges, Bryant, Dombrowski, --BIG WHITESPACE HERE-- Briggs, Treppa

(big whitespace between some words)

output page doesnt show strange characters instead of whitespace anymore but it shows this whitespace completely.
I want it to be one space,
Is there any solution for this or do i need to clean them from database?

Thanks

ugurpc

I solved this as below :

$string = $columns['announcements'];
$filtered1 = preg_replace("/[^{\S\r\n]+/u",'} ',$string);
$filtered2 = preg_replace("#[^{\S\r\n]+#u",'} ',$string);
$filtered3 = preg_replace("#[^{\S\r\n][^{\S\r\n]+#u",'}} ',$string);
$filtered10 = preg_replace('/[^{\S\r\n]{2,}/u','} ',$string);
$filtered11 = preg_replace('/\h+/u', ' ', $string);
$filtered16 = preg_replace('/(\xA0+)/u', ' ', $string);

all of them worked at me, But i dont know which one is better.