PHP : Array key containing special character not found

Question

I am trying to convert strings to numbers using an array with keys as a lookup table.

This is the array:

$q2_10_lt = array(\"Full-time worker\" => 1
          


        

Answer 1

I ended up changing my table column encoding to utf8_general_ci and table collation to utf8_general_ci. I also added the following lines of code to my php file:

ini_set('default_charset', 'utf-8');

//set encodig to utf-8
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'"); 
mysql_query("SET CHARACTER SET 'utf8'");

It is working now, but I could be doing something not recommended?