PHP Include File, Unicode Problem

[jshpik1]

Hello,

 

I have a PHP file that has some unicode characters (japanese), for text.  I use Notepad to do all my work in.  I save the file in UTF-8 format rather than ANSI, the .tpl file works correctly, however the .php shows up strange and with additional characters (looks like some of the PHP code).  Help is greatly appreciated.

[haku]

Is the text that is coming out unreadable dynamic text from a database, or text that has been hardcoded into the document?

 

create a new php file, and add this one line of code to it:

 

<?php echo phpinfo(); ?>

 

Then upload that to the folder that you are having troubles with, and open that file through your browser. Then tell me what it says under

 

HTTP Headers Information  =>  Accept-Charset

[jshpik1]

I also have a meta tag, not sure what it's for:

 

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

 

It's showing no value under default charset for the phpinfo.

[jshpik1]

Those characters aren't from hardcoded or mysql, no clude where they came from.  I tried removing the tag and it didn't change anything.

[haku]

You have some Japanese words that are not displaying correctly right? They should be reading as 漢字 but are looking like something else. You either made a query to your database and echoed these characters (words), or they are part of your php document. Which one is it?

[jshpik1]

They're from the php document.

[haku]

Ok, now create a new php file, and add this one line of code to it:

 

Code:

 

<?php echo phpinfo(); ?>

 

 

Then upload that to the folder that you are having troubles with, and open that file through your browser. Then tell me what it says under

 

HTTP Headers Information  =>  Accept-Charset

[jshpik1]

There is nothing that states accept-charset, it has default charset which states "no value"

[haku]

Alright, then your problem is that your default character set is not set to utf-8 in your php.ini file. You need to do two things.

 

First you need to open up your php.ini file, and look for the line that looks something like this:

 

default_charset = _____________

 

it should read:

 

default_charset = "UTF-8"

 

Save that, and re-upload php.ini to the same place it was on your server.

 

Next, you need to change this line in your code:

 

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

 

And make it read like this:

 

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

[jshpik1]

Hahahaha, all I did was change the meta tag to what you said and it fixed it.  I don't think I have access to php.ini although my host may give it if I asked. 

[haku]

Good deal then.

 

If you are planning on making a Japanese site, I wouldn't recommend utf-8 for your encoding. Making dynamic Japanese sites is quite difficult, and requires different encodings in different areas. But utf-8 has some major issues so you don't want to use it. But if you are just planning on making a site that will display some Japanese characters, utf-8 will suit your needs fine.

 

Good luck!