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    mysql_set_charset

    (PHP 5 >= 5.2.3)

    mysql_set_charset — Establece el conjunto de caracteres del cliente

    Advertencia

    Esta extensión fue declarada obsoleta en PHP 5.5.0 y eliminada en PHP 7.0.0. En su lugar debería utilzarse las extensiones MySQLi o PDO_MySQL. Véase también la guía MySQL: elegir una API. Las alternativas a esta función son:

    Descripción

    mysql_set_charset(string $charset, resource $link_identifier = NULL): bool

    Establece el conjunto de caracteres predeterminado para la conexión actual.

    Parámetros

    charset

    Un nombre válido de un conjunto de caracteres.

    link_identifier

    La conexión MySQL. Si no se especifica el identificador de enlace, se asume el último enlace abierto por mysql_connect(). Si no se encuentra este enlace, se intentará crear un nuevo enlace como si mysql_connect() hubiese sido invocada sin argumentos. Si no se encuentra o establece ninguna conexión, se genera un error de nivel E_WARNING.

    Valores devueltos

    Devuelve true en caso de éxito o false en caso de error.

    Notas

    Nota:

    Esta función requiere MySQL 5.0.7 o posterior.

    Nota:

    Esta es la mejor forma de cambiar el conjunto de caracteres. El uso de mysql_query() para establecerlo (como SET NAMES utf8) no es recomendable. Véase la sección conceptos de conjuntos de caracteres de MySQL para más información.

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    User Contributed Notes 8 notes

    up
    30
    Ashus
    16 years ago
    I needed to access the database from within one particular webhosting service. Pages are UTF-8 encoded and data received by forms should be inserted into database without changing the encoding. The database is also in UTF-8.

    Neither SET character set 'utf8' or SET names 'utf8' worked properly here, so this workaround made sure all variables are set to utf-8.

    <?php

    // ... (creating a connection to mysql) ...

    mysql_query("SET character_set_results = 'utf8', character_set_client = 'utf8', character_set_connection = 'utf8', character_set_database = 'utf8', character_set_server = 'utf8'", $conn);

    $re = mysql_query('SHOW VARIABLES LIKE "%character_set%";')or die(mysql_error());
    while (    $r = mysql_fetch_assoc($re)) {var_dump ($r); echo "<br />";} exit;

    ?>

    All important variables are now utf-8 and we can safely use INSERTs or SELECTs with mysql_escape_string($var) without any encoding functions.
    up
    16
    nabeelmoidu at gmail dot com
    16 years ago
    Here's an example of how to use this feature :

    I'm using  PHP 5.2.5 from http://oss.oracle.com/projects/php/

    I wanted to store arabic characters as UTF8 in the database and as suggested in many of the google results, I tried using

    mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");

    and

    mysql_query("SET CHARACTER SET utf8 ");

    but it did not work.

    Using the following, it worked flawlessly

    $link = mysql_connect('localhost', 'user', 'password');
    mysql_set_charset('utf8',$link);

    Once this is set we need not manually encode the text into utf using utf8_encode() or other functions. The arabic ( or any UTF8 supported ) text can be passed directly to the database and it is automatically converted by PHP.
    For eg.
    <?php
    $link     = mysql_connect('localhost', 'user', 'password');
    mysql_set_charset('utf8',$link);
    $db_selected = mysql_select_db('emp_feedback', $link);
    if (!    $db_selected) { die ('Database access error : ' . mysql_error());}
    $query = "INSERT INTO feedback ( EmpName, Message ) VALUES ('$_empName','$_message')";
    mysql_query($query) or die('Error, Feedback insert into database failed');
    ?>
    Note that here $_empName is stored in English while $_message is in Arabic.
    up
    0
    Janez R.
    17 years ago
    I assume that this is an equivalent in previous versions of php (add some parameter validation and default values though!):
    <?
    if (!function_exists('mysql_set_charset')) {
      function     mysql_set_charset($charset,$dbh)
      {
        return     mysql_query("set names $charset",$dbh);
      }
    }
    ?>
    up
    -5
    nag QWE svgfr RTY org
    17 years ago
    Here's an improved version of Janez R.'s function:
    <?php
    if (function_exists('mysql_set_charset') === false) {
            /**
         * Sets the client character set.
         *
         * Note: This function requires MySQL 5.0.7 or later.
         *
         * @see http://www.php.net/mysql-set-charset
         * @param string $charset A valid character set name
         * @param resource $link_identifier The MySQL connection
         * @return TRUE on success or FALSE on failure
         */
            function mysql_set_charset($charset, $link_identifier = null)
        {
            if (    $link_identifier == null) {
                return     mysql_query('SET CHARACTER SET "'.$charset.'"');
            } else {
                return     mysql_query('SET CHARACTER SET "'.$charset.'"', $link_identifier);
            }
        }
    }
    ?>
    up
    -5
    Anonymous
    16 years ago
    Actually, this function is available in client libraries in MySQL 4.1.13 and newer, too.  So the real version requirement is MySQL >= 5.0.7 OR, if you're using MySQL 4, then >= 4.1.13.
    up
    -12
    emeszenes at gmail dot com
    10 years ago
    Massage for nabeelmoidu at gmail dot com:

    For me works following code:

    $mysqli = mysqli_connect( ... );
    mysqli_query( $mysqli, 'SET NAMES "utf8" COLLATE "utf8_general_ci"' );

    or just:

    mysqli_set_charset( $mysqli, 'utf8' );

    Regards, good luck!
    up
    -8
    Ronald
    16 years ago
    I need to revoke most of my post below. What I found out afterwards is this:

    1. if you do not use mysql_set_char mysql will NOT do any translations and thus store a utf8-character-byte as is. If you then retrieve this byte from the db and output it in a utf8 page it will show just fine BUT if other apps query this byte (expecting to find a latin1 byte) they will go wrong.

    2. the 'bug' mentioned before only occurs if you use a ucase or lcase function in your statement (like: latin1_col = ucase('utf8 string')

    Hope this helps, Ronald
    up
    -12
    Ronald
    16 years ago
    I just hope that the text below will help someone who is struggling with charset encoding, specially when php-charset is different from the mysql-charset. Let me add that I really think that the php man-pages on the mysql-functions are lacking a lot of details on this important issues. Could someone add some useful text here?

    Here is my situation. PHP5.2.4, MySql 4.1.15. A php web-application fully utf-8 encoded and a mysql database in latin1 charset.

    To make this work I had to:

    1. create and store all code files (php, html, inc, js, etc) in the utf-8 charset. Your editor should have an option for this, if not dump it.

    2. check that your editor does not add a BOM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte-order_mark) at the beginning of the file. Use a hex-editor to detect them if needed.

    3. Set your apache environment to utf-8 by adding 'AddDefaultCharset utf-8' to your .htaccess. If you do not use apache add 'default_charset utf-8' to your php.ini. You have to do either of them (not both), php will use the apache setting where needed.

    4. Additionally add this meta-tag to your html-header: '<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />'. This will help silly browsers (Oeps, IE again?) that ignore the utf-response-header send to them.

    5. Check that the above line are listened to by check the 'page info' of your pages in firefox. It should show 2 (!!) utf-8 entries.

    ======== all of the above sofar has nothing to do with mysql ;-) ======

    6. Do *NOT* (repeat NOT!) set the 'names' (set names *) or _ANY_ 'character set' (set character set *) (opposed to what they tell you on these pages).

    7. Check the previous item by listing the results of the mysql query 'SHOW session VARIABLES'. All char_sets here should say 'latin1', except for the system one which is always 'utf8'. All collations should say 'latin1_*'. Furthermore the php function mysql_client_encoding() should also return latin1 (though I don't understand why; what does this value mean, I would think if php (being the client) is utf8 encoded this would be utf8?)

    8 Finally test the above by storing this string in your db and output it in your webpage: 'Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn and €'.

    Now what was interesting during testing and debugging of the above findings was:
    1. If I would run 'mysql_set_charset('utf8')' _OR_ 'mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");' and then run a query in which I would have 'where char_column = 'abc''it would die with 'Illegal mix of collations'

    2. If I would run 'mysql_query("SET character_set_client = 'utf8';"); mysql_query("SET character_set_result = 'utf8';")' the query would work BUT the non-ascii-characters would show scrambled in the browser.

    3. BUT these 2 points above work just fine on my local dev-machine (php 5.2.3 & mysql 5.0.45)!!!!!!!!

    This draws me to these 3 conclusions:

    1. The Php-mysql-function library (5.2.+) does a fine job translating utf-8 queries & results to/from latin1! It's better to let php handle this for you then to have mysql do this.

    2. Mysql (4.0.+) has 1 or more bugs (well, let's say unfinished features) that involve the charset-translations that are solved in 5.0.+.

    3. It is not well enough documented! (Otherwise I would have to write this)

    One last remark: clearly characters that exist in utf8 and not in latin1 (and vv.) will get lost during utf8-latin1-utf8 translation.

    If any of the above is not correct or not complete feel free to correct this! (Or better yet, add a chapter to the php manual :-)

    Cheers, Ronald
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