[php] How to convert php array to utf8?

In case of a PDO connection, the following might help, but the database should be in UTF-8:

//Connect
$db = new PDO(
    'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database_name;', 'dbuser', 'dbpassword',
    array('charset'=>'utf8')
);
$db->query("SET CHARACTER SET utf8");