PHP and UTF-8 encoding issues: Tips and tricks to resolve them

May 25, 2013

Character encoding can still be a pain, even when the right meta tag is in place. Here are a few tips that can help resolve common UTF-8 issues in PHP and MySQL.

1. Add the following to the top of your PHP page:

ini_set('default_charset', 'UTF-8');
header('content-type: text/html; charset: utf-8');
mb_language('uni');
mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');

2. MySQL collation

Make sure your MySQL databases and tables use a UTF-8 collation. This can usually be changed in phpMyAdmin under the relevant database or table options.

3. Make sure your MySQL connection declares UTF-8

//currently: PDO
$conn_info = 'mysql:host=localhost; dbname=test; charset=UTF8';
$dbh = new PDO($conn_info, $db_user, $db_password);

//Before 5.3.6: PDO
$db = new PDO($con, $db_user, $db_password);
$db->exec('set names utf8');

//not recommended!
if ($db = @mysql_connect($host, $username, $password)) {
		mysql_select_db($databasename, $db);
		mysql_set_charset("utf8");
		mysql_query('SET NAMES utf8');
        //code here
}

4. Make sure the PHP file is saved as UTF-8, not ASCII

Text editors such as Sublime Text can convert a file to UTF-8 for you, since some editors and IDEs may still use ASCII by default. In Sublime Text, go to File → Save with Encoding → UTF-8.

It is also recommended to use PDO for database access. Check out this Tuts+ article, Why You Should Be Using PHP's PDO for Database Access, for more information.

5. Make sure your web page uses the UTF-8 meta tag as well:

<meta charset="UTF-8">

6. Lastly

Be sure to check your code editor’s settings to confirm that the file is being viewed and saved as UTF-8.