How Can I Store and Display Unicode Strings in MySQL and PHP?

Storing and Displaying Unicode Strings (हिन्दी) Using PHP and MySQL

To store and display Unicode strings like "सूर्योदय" in a MySQL database and retrieve them using PHP, follow these steps:

Database Setup:

• Create a database with UTF-8 encoding and collation (e.g., UTF-8 general_ci).
• Add a VARCHAR field to your table with the UTF-8 charset property.

Storing the String:

• Insert the Unicode string directly into the database using a PHP script.

• Ensure your PHP script sets the character set properties correctly:

  • mysql_set_charset('utf8'); before executing your query
  • Use utf8mb4 as your character set for better Unicode support

Retrieving and Displaying the String:

• Use mysql_query("SET NAMES utf8"); at the beginning of your PHP script to set the character set for the connection.
• Fetch the string from the database using a query.
• To display the Unicode string correctly in a web browser, use echo(utf8_decode($string)). This will convert the encoded UTF-8 string into the corresponding Unicode characters.

Additional Tips:

• Set the Content-Type for your HTML document to UTF-8 using:

  • or use header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8'); in PHP
• Use UTF-8 compatible PHP functions for string manipulation, such as htmlentities() and htmlspecialchars().

Alternative Solution:

• Store the Unicode string in the database as its UTF-8 encoded counterpart (e.g., सूर्योदय for "सूर्योदय").
• Retreive the encoded string from the database and then decode it for display using html_entity_decode().

Note:

The provided sample script uses the older mysql_ functions. For newer PHP versions, use the mysqli or PDO extensions for database interactions. The syntax will slightly differ, but the overall principles remain the same.

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