How to Properly Store and Display Hindi (हिन्दी) Unicode Strings in PHP and MySQL?

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

Issue and Overview

A user encountered difficulties in storing, retrieving, and displaying Hindi text (हिन्दी) using PHP and MySQL. Despite setting the database encoding and collation to UTF-8, the displayed text appeared as question marks.

Resolving the Problem

The user implemented the correct database settings but overlooked the following crucial steps:

1. Configuring Meta or Header Information:

   • Add a tag or use header() in the PHP script to define the content type as text/html;charset=UTF-8. This informs the browser and PHP that the content uses UTF-8 character encoding.

2. Setting MySQL Connection Character Set:

   • Run the query SET NAMES utf8 at the beginning of the PHP script to set the character set for the MySQL connection.

Additional Insights

• Direct Storage of Unicode Strings:

  • Entering Unicode data directly into the database via PhpMyAdmin or similar tools should work as expected. If not, check database configurations and connection settings.

• Conversion Script:

  • To convert Hindi text like सूर्योदय to HTML character entities, consider utilizing a character encoding conversion tool or script.

• Provided Sample Script:

  • The user's provided sample script, which includes the SET NAMES utf8 query, reflects the proper way to handle UTF-8 strings in MySQL and PHP.

Conclusion

By following these steps, developers can effectively store, retrieve, and display Unicode strings like Hindi in MySQL databases using PHP. Understanding the importance of proper character encoding and connection settings is essential for seamless data handling and display.

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