SET NAMES utf8 in MySQL

Question

I often see something similar to this below in PHP scripts using MySQL  query  SET NAMES utf8         I have never had to do this for any project yet so I have a couple basic questions about it      Is this something that is done with PDO only  If it is not a PDO specific thing  then what is the purpose of doing it   I realize it is setting the encoding for mysql but I mean  I have never had to use it so why would I want to use it

User · Accepted Answer

It is needed whenever you want to send data to the server having characters that cannot be represented in pure ASCII, like 'ñ' or 'ö'.

That if the MySQL instance is not configured to expect UTF-8 encoding by default from client connections (many are, depending on your location and platform.)

Read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html in case you aren't aware how Unicode works.

Read Whether to use "SET NAMES" to see SET NAMES alternatives and what exactly is it about.

User · Answer

Not only PDO  If sql answer like        symbols  preset of you charset  hope UTF-8  really recommended   if    mysqli- gt set charset  utf8        printf  Can t set utf8   s n    mysqli- gt error       or via procedure style mysqli set charset  db  utf8

User · Answer

Getting encoding right is really tricky - there are too many layers   Browser Page PHP MySQL  The SQL command  quot SET CHARSET utf8 quot  from PHP will ensure that the client side  PHP  will get the data in utf8  no matter how they are stored in the database  Of course  they need to be stored correctly first  DDL definition vs  real data Encoding defined for a table column doesn t really mean that the data are in that encoding  If you happened to have a table defined as utf8 but stored as differtent encoding  then MySQL will treat them as utf8 and you re in trouble  Which means you have to fix this first  What to check You need to check in what encoding the data flow at each layer   Check HTTP headers   headers  Check what s really sent in body of the request  Don t forget that MySQL has encoding almost everywhere   Database Tables Columns Server as a whole Client Make sure that there s the right one everywhere     Conversion If you receive data in e g  windows-1250  and want to store in utf-8  then use this SQL before storing  SET NAMES  cp1250    If you have data in DB as windows-1250 and want to retreive utf8  use  SET CHARSET  utf8    Few more notes   Don t rely on too  quot smart quot  tools to show the data  E g  phpMyAdmin does  was doing when I was using it  encoding really bad  And it goes through all the layers so it s hard to find out  Also  Internet Explorer had really stupid behavior of  quot guessing quot  the encoding based on weird rules  Use simple editors where you can switch encoding  I recommend MySQL Workbench

User · Answer

Instead of doing this via an SQL query use the php function  mysqli  set charset mysqli set charset   Note   This is the preferred way to change the charset  Using mysqli query   to set it  such as SET NAMES utf8  is not recommended        See the MySQL character set concepts section for more information    from http   www php net manual en mysqli set-charset php

User · Answer

The solution is     conn- gt set charset  utf8

User · Answer

This query should be written before the query which create or update data in the database  this query looks like    mysql query  set names  utf8       Note that you should write the encode which you are using in the header for example if you are using utf-8 you add it like this in the header or it will couse a problem with Internet Explorer  so your page looks like this   lt html gt       lt head gt           lt title gt page title lt  title gt           lt meta charset  UTF-8    gt          lt  head gt       lt body gt       lt  php             mysql query  set names  utf8                     sql    INSERT   FROM                        mysql query  sql         gt            lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

From the manual      SET NAMES indicates what character set   the client will use to send SQL   statements to the server    More elaborately   and once again  gratuitously lifted from the manual       SET NAMES indicates what character set   the client will use to send SQL   statements to the server  Thus  SET   NAMES  cp1251  tells the server       future incoming messages from this   client are in character set cp1251       It also specifies the character set   that the server should use for sending   results back to the client   For   example  it indicates what character   set to use for column values if you   use a SELECT statement

User · Answer

Thanks  all   don t use  query  SET NAMES utf8    this is setup stuff and not a query  put it right afte a connection start with setCharset    or similar method    some little thing in parctice    status     mysql server by default talks latin1 your hole app is in utf8 connection is made without any extra  so  latin1   no SET NAMES utf8      no set charset   method function    Store and read data is no problem as long mysql can handle the characters   if you look in the db you will already see there is crap in it  e g using phpmyadmin     until now this is not a problem   wrong but works often  in europe         unless another client programm or a changed library  which works correct  will read save data  then you are in big trouble

[php] SET NAMES utf8 in MySQL?

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