cyrillized words read from database with php

Question

Why when I'm reading a cyrillic text from database it's ok , but when I put this text in select-option menu I get strange symbols

http://prikachi.com/images/813/6589813g.jpg http://prikachi.com/images/811/6589811I.jpg

I think that I put everywhere to be utf-8 but I don't know ...

in my html I use :

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

Answer 1

most likely you're not using the same charset (utf-8) everywhere so your data gets messed up at some point. depending on what exactly you're doing, you'll have to change/add one or more of the following points (maybe it's the SET CHARSET/mysql_set_charset you forgot):

• tell MySQL to use utf-8. to do this, add this to your my.cnf:

  collation_server = utf8_unicode_ci
  character_set_server = utf8
  

• before interacting with mysql, send this two querys:

  SET NAMES 'utf8';
  CHARSET 'utf8';
  

  or, alternatively, let php do this after opening the connection:

  mysql_set_charset('utf8', $conn); // when using the mysql_-functions
  mysqli::set_charset('utf8') // when using mysqli
  

• set UTF-8 as the default charset for your database

  CREATE DATABASE `my_db` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET 'utf8';
  

• do the same for tables:

  CREATE TABLE `my_table` (
    -- ...
  ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
  

• assuming the client is a browser, serve your content as utf-8 and the the correct header:

  header('Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
  

  to be really sure the browser understands, add a meta-tag:

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

• and, last but not least, tell the browser to submit forms using utf-8

  <form accept-charset="utf-8" ...>