How do I make MySQL return UTF-8?

Question

I\'m using PHPUnit to validate XML output from my PHP code, but apparently I have problems with the character encoding MySQL returns. Here is the error I get from DOMDocumen

Answer 1

You have to define the connection to your database as UTF-8:

// Set up your connection
$connection = mysql_connect('localhost', 'user', 'pw');
mysql_select_db('yourdb', $connection);
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'", $connection);

// Now you get UTF-8 encoded stuff
$query = sprintf('SELECT name FROM place where id = 1');
$result = mysql_query($query, $connection);
$result = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);

Answer 2

From version PHP 5.5.0 you should use

mysqli_set_charset($connection,"utf8");