What MySQL Collation Best Suits UTF-8 PHP Websites?

Which Collation Is Optimal for MySQL with PHP?

Question:

For general websites with uncertain user input, is there a recommended MySQL collation? Should all encodings align, including MySQL, Apache, HTML, and PHP? Additionally, if PHP is configured to output in "UTF-8," which MySQL collation corresponds?

Answer:

Sorting Accuracy and Performance

The primary consideration in choosing a collation is its sorting accuracy and performance. The exception is utf8_bin, which compares characters in binary format.

General Collations

• utf8_general_ci is faster than utf8_unicode_ci but less accurate for sorting.
• utf8_unicode_ci provides higher accuracy but may incur a slight performance penalty.

Language-Specific Collations

Specific language encodings (e.g., utf8_swedish_ci) include language rules that optimize sorting accuracy for those languages.

Recommendation

Unless a specific language is targeted, utf8_unicode_ci is typically recommended for its balance of accuracy and performance. For more information on Unicode character sets, refer to the MySQL manual: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-unicode-sets.html.

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