Handling UTF-8 Encoding Issues when Storing User Input in MySQL with PHP 8.1
Could someone explain I'm wondering if anyone has experience with I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer. I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple. After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but Working on a project where user-generated content is crucial, I've run into a frustrating UTF-8 encoding problem. My PHP 8.1 application stores user input in a MySQL database, and I want to ensure that all characters, including emojis and non-Latin scripts, are correctly saved and retrieved. Currently, I've set up my MySQL database with the utf8mb4 character set, which should accommodate all UTF-8 characters. However, when I attempt to insert some specific inputs, like `"Hello, ๐!"` or `"ใใใซใกใฏ"`, I notice that these get corrupted in the database. Here's the relevant snippet where I handle the database connection and insertion: ```php $dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydb;charset=utf8mb4'; $username = 'root'; $password = 'password'; $options = [ PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => 'SET NAMES utf8mb4', ]; try { $pdo = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password, $options); $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION); } catch (PDOException $e) { echo 'Connection failed: ' . $e->getMessage(); } $userInput = 'ใใใซใกใฏ'; $sql = 'INSERT INTO users (username) VALUES (:username)'; $stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql); $stmt->execute(['username' => $userInput]); ``` Despite this setup, reading the data back from the database shows it as garbled text. I've verified that my database collation is set to `utf8mb4_unicode_ci`, and the table is created correctly, yet the problem persists. If anyone has faced similar issues or could point me in the right direction for troubleshooting UTF-8 encoding with PHP and MySQL, I'd greatly appreciate it. Has anyone else encountered this? For context: I'm using Php on Linux. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. I'm working on a API that needs to handle this. What's the best practice here? Any examples would be super helpful. I'm working in a Ubuntu 22.04 environment. I'm on macOS using the latest version of Php. What would be the recommended way to handle this?