Chinese Web Sites Using PHP - v2.23, by Herong Yang
String Literal Travel Path
This section providing information on how string literals in PHP scripts travel through various applications from you as a publisher to a user as a viewer of a Web page.
In order to enter Chinese characters in PHP scripts and output them in Web pages correctly, you need to understand how a character string is being created in PHP, written into a Web page, and transferred through various applications to reach the viewer's screen. Here is a simplified diagram that shows the steps and applications used to create and deliver PHP strings to viewer's screen:
P1. Key Sequences from keyboard | |- Text editor v P2. PHP Script | |- PHP-CGI v P3. HTML Document | |- Web server v P4. HTTP Response | |- Internet TCP/IP Connection v P5. HTTP Response | |- Web browser v P6. Visual characters on the screen
If you decided to use UTF-8 encoding to enter Chinese characters in your PHP scripts that generates HTML documents, you need to make sure that all applications mentioned in the above diagram are friendly to UTF-8 encoding. Otherwise, corrupted characters could be introduced during the transfer process and displayed on viewer's screen.
Fortunately, most editors, PHP CGI, Web servers, TCP/IP interfaces, and Web browsers do support UTF-8 nicely.
The PHP string literal travel path diagram can also help you to troubleshoot problem in displaying Chinese Web pages. The best strategy is to use diagnostic tool to capture the HTML document at different steps and review it to see if there are any damages.
Table of Contents
PHP Installation on Windows Systems
Integrating PHP with Apache Web Server
charset="*" - Encodings on Chinese Web Pages
►Chinese Characters in PHP String Literals
String Data Type, Literals and Functions
Chinese Character String with UTF-8 Encoding
Chinese Character String with GB18030 Encoding Error
Chinese Character String with GB18030 Encoding
Chinese Character String with Big5 Encoding
UTF-8 Encoding Pages with Big5 Characters
Multibyte String Functions in UTF-8 Encoding
Input Text Data from Web Forms
Input Chinese Text Data from Web Forms
MySQL - Installation on Windows
MySQL - Connecting PHP to Database
MySQL - Character Set and Encoding
MySQL - Sending Non-ASCII Text to MySQL
Retrieving Chinese Text from Database to Web Pages
Input Chinese Text Data to MySQL Database