French Characters in String Literals - UTF-8 Encoding

This section provides a tutorial example on how enter and use French characters PHP string literals using Unicode UTF-8 encoding. The PHP script file should be stored in UTF-8 format.

First, let's play to some French characters in UTF-8 encoding first.

1. On a Windows system, run Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad.

2. In Notepad, enter the following PHP script:

<?php
#  HelpUtf8French.php
#- Copyright 2009 (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
#
   print('<html>');
   print('<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"'.
      ' content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>');
   print('<body>');
   print('<b>Help</b><br/>');
   print('English: System load is very high.<br/>');
   print('French: L\'utilisation de système est très haute.<br/>');
   print('</body>');
   print('</html>');
?>

3. To enter the French character, "e with grave", you can run Start > All Programs > System Tools > Character Map. Select "e with grave" on the character map. Click the Select button, then the Copy button. Go back to your Notepad and click Ctrl-V to paste "e with grave" into your PHP script.

4. Select menu File > Save as. Enter the file name as HelpUtf8French.php. Select "UTF-8" in the Encoding field and click the Save button.

5. Copy HelpUtf8French.php to c:\apache\htdocs. Make sure your Internet Information Service is running the local default Web site.

6. Now run Internet Explorer (IE) with http://localhost/HelpUtf8French.php. Your should see the French characters displayed correctly as shown below:

Help
English: System load is very high.
French: L'utilisation de système est très haute.

7. On the IE window, select menu View > Encoding. You should see UTF-8 is selected.

Another interesting thing you should know is about how Notepad stores a UTF-8 file. When you use UTF-8 encoding to store a file in Notepad, it will insert a UTF-8 marker (3 bytes) at the beginning of the file. Use the "type" command in a command window, you will see this:

>type HelpUtf8French.php

<?php
#  HelpUtf8French.php
#- Copyright 2009 (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
#
   print('<html>');
   print('<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"'.
      ' content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>');
   print('<body>');
   print('<b>Help</b><br/>');
   print('English: System load is very high.<br/>');
   print('French: L\'utilisation de système est très haute.<br/>');
   print('</body>');
   print('</html>');
?>

The hex value of the UTF-8 marker is 0xEFBBBF. Web server will send it the client. IE browser will not show it on the page, but it will use it to detect the encoding schema, if needed. Not sure on how other browsers will behave this marker.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction and Installation of PHP

 PHP Script File Syntax

 PHP Data Types and Data Literals

 Variables, References, and Constants

 Expressions, Operations and Type Conversions

 Conditional Statements - "if" and "switch"

 Loop Statements - "while", "for", and "do ... while"

 Function Declaration, Arguments, and Return Values

 Arrays - Ordered Maps

 Interface with Operating System

 Introduction of Class and Object

 Integrating PHP with Apache Web Server

 Retrieving Information from HTTP Requests

 Creating and Managing Sessions in PHP Scripts

 Sending and Receiving Cookies in PHP Scripts

 Controlling HTTP Response Header Lines in PHP Scripts

 Managing File Upload

 MySQL Server Connection and Access Functions

 Functions to Manage Directories, Files and Images

 SOAP Extension Function and Calling Web Services

 SOAP Server Functions and Examples

 Localization Overview of Web Applications

 Using Non-ASCII Characters in HTML Documents

Using Non-ASCII Characters as PHP Script String Literals

 Basic Rules of Using Non-ASCII Characters in HTML Documents

French Characters in String Literals - UTF-8 Encoding

 French Characters in HTML Documents - ISO-8859-1 Encoding

 Chinese Characters in String Literals - UTF-8 Encoding

 Chinese Characters in String Literals - GB2312 Encoding

 Characters of Multiple Languages in String Literals

 Receiving Non-ASCII Characters from Input Forms

 "mbstring" Extension and Non-ASCII Encoding Management

 Managing Non-ASCII Character Strings with MySQL Servers

 Parsing and Managing HTML Documents

 Configuring and Sending Out Emails

 Image and Picture Processing

 Managing ZIP Archive Files

 Managing PHP Engine and Modules on macOS

 Managing PHP Engine and Modules on CentOS

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB