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PHP 8.2 - Strange Output When Using json_encode with UTF-8 Data from MySQL

đź‘€ Views: 0 đź’¬ Answers: 1 đź“… Created: 2025-06-15
php mysql json PHP

I'm working through a tutorial and I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I've been struggling with this for a few days now and could really use some help. I'm working with an scenario when retrieving UTF-8 encoded strings from my MySQL database and then encoding them with `json_encode()` in PHP 8.2. Some characters are not displaying correctly in the JSON output, and I get unexpected results. Specifically, when I try to encode a string like `"Café"`, it ends up as `"Café"`, which is expected, but other strings like `"Tromsø"` get corrupted, resulting in output like `"Trømsø"` where it seems like some characters are being mishandled. My database connection uses the following code: ```php $dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase;charset=utf8mb4'; $options = [ PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION, PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE => PDO::FETCH_ASSOC, ]; $pdo = new PDO($dsn, 'username', 'password', $options); ``` When I retrieve the data, I'm using a simple query: ```php $query = $pdo->query("SELECT name FROM locations"); $results = $query->fetchAll(); ``` After fetching the results, I pass them to `json_encode()`: ```php $jsonData = json_encode($results); ``` I have already confirmed that the database and table are set to `utf8mb4`, and I'm using the correct charset in the DSN. I've also tried adding the following line after my PDO connection: ```php $pdo->exec("SET NAMES 'utf8mb4'"); ``` Despite these attempts, the scenario continues. I’m wondering if there’s something else I could be missing or if there's a more effective way to handle UTF-8 data when encoding to JSON. Any insights would be appreciated! Thanks in advance! For context: I'm using Php on Linux. Any help would be greatly appreciated! This is my first time working with Php latest. What would be the recommended way to handle this? For context: I'm using Php on CentOS. Is there a simpler solution I'm overlooking?