mursalat

mysql_set_charset() was the solution... sorry to not answer, i did mysql_set_charset('utf8') - and it worked!

i did that already.

just add a .00 to it when you echo it, php only gives to decimal places if there is any value in decimal places.

first time i see a php freak getting stuck with a with question's answer

the path is: '../../../msprog/offroad/cert/eo/' forget about the server root, it works for me without the server root stuff, so the new code can be: <?php $filename = '../../../msprog/offroad/cert/eo/'.$row['engine_year'].'/ofci/'.$row['engine_executive_order'].'.pdf'; if (file_exists($filename)) { $engineFamilyName = "<a href=".$filename.">".$row['engine_family_name']."</a>"; } else { $engineFamilyName = $row['engine_family_name']; //This is what it echos even though a file is there. } echo $engineFamilyName . "<br />"; echo "<a href='$filename'>$filename</a>"; //I check the file path and it works. The link goes to the pdf document. ?>

please someone - i really need help in this!

i tried this print_r(mysql_client_encoding()); and the result was latin1, so how do i change this client encoding?

@adam - I tried it already and it didn't work, i am using mysql database.

how do i represent non-english character from the database? i am using mysql, so say when i want to show some chinese characters "你好世界" (hello world, translated using babel fish ) from the database i get '????' signs, so how do i show it? in the database its stored perfectly (saw it using phpmyadmin.) I tried including a file that contains the chinese characters, and it comes out fine. so its gotta be some error in the process of getting data from the database.