PHP mysqli set_charset() Function

Example - Object Oriented style

Change the default client character set:

<?php
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost","my_user","my_password","my_db");

if ($mysqli -> connect_errno) {
echo "Failed to connect to MySQL: " . $mysqli -> connect_error;
exit();
}

echo "Initial character set is: " . $mysqli -> character_set_name();

// Change character set to utf8
$mysqli -> set_charset("utf8");

echo "Current character set is: " . $mysqli -> character_set_name();

$mysqli -> close();
?>

Look at example of procedural style at the bottom.

Definition and Usage

The set_charset() / mysqli_set_charset() function specifies the default character set to be used when sending data to and from the database server.

Note: For this function to work on a Windows platform, you need MySQL client library 4.1.11 or above (for MySQL 5.0, you need 5.0.6 or above).

Syntax

Object oriented style:

$mysqli -> set_charset(charset)

Procedural style:

mysqli_set_charset(connection, charset)

Parameter Values

Parameter	Description
connection	Required. Specifies the MySQL connection to use
charset	Required. Specifies the default character set

Technical Details

Return Value:	TRUE on success. FALSE on failure
PHP Version:	5.0.5+

Example - Procedural style

Change the default client character set:

<?php
$con=mysqli_connect("localhost","my_user","my_password","my_db");

// Check connection
if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
echo "Failed to connect to MySQL: " . mysqli_connect_error();
exit;
}

echo "Initial character set is: " . mysqli_character_set_name($con);

// Change character set to utf8
mysqli_set_charset($con,"utf8");

echo "Current character set is: " . mysqli_character_set_name($con);

mysqli_close($con);
?>

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