7.3.9.49 mysqli::set_charset, mysqli_set_charset

Copyright 1997-2020 the PHP Documentation Group.

• mysqli::set_charset

  mysqli_set_charset

  Sets the default client character set

Description

Object oriented style

bool mysqli::set_charset(string charset);

Procedural style

bool mysqli_set_charset(mysqli link,
                        string charset);

Sets the default character set to be used when sending data from and to the database server.

Parameters

link

Procedural style only: A link identifier returned by mysqli_connect or mysqli_init

charset

The charset to be set as default.

Return Values

Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

Notes

Note

To use this function on a Windows platform you need MySQL client library version 4.1.11 or above (for MySQL 5.0 you need 5.0.6 or above).

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.

Examples

Example 7.74 mysqli::set_charset example

Object oriented style

<?php
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "test");
/* check connection */
if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
    printf("Connect failed: %s\n", mysqli_connect_error());
    exit();
}
printf("Initial character set: %s\n", $mysqli->character_set_name());
/* change character set to utf8 */
if (!$mysqli->set_charset("utf8")) {
    printf("Error loading character set utf8: %s\n", $mysqli->error);
    exit();
} else {
    printf("Current character set: %s\n", $mysqli->character_set_name());
}
$mysqli->close();
?>

Procedural style

<?php
$link = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'my_user', 'my_password', 'test');
/* check connection */
if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
    printf("Connect failed: %s\n", mysqli_connect_error());
    exit();
}
printf("Initial character set: %s\n", mysqli_character_set_name($link));
/* change character set to utf8 */
if (!mysqli_set_charset($link, "utf8")) {
    printf("Error loading character set utf8: %s\n", mysqli_error($link));
    exit();
} else {
    printf("Current character set: %s\n", mysqli_character_set_name($link));
}
mysqli_close($link);
?>

The above examples will output something similar to:

Initial character set: latin1
Current character set: utf8

See Also

mysqli_character_set_name

mysqli_real_escape_string

MySQL character set concepts

List of character sets that MySQL supports