Do not use Microsoft Word to save files that need to be read-in by other software. Ever. It *always* finds a way to screw it up. Even if you cut and paste it into the other program, I've heard cases where Word has put unprintable control characters into the pasted output, that showed-up as spaces in the form, then corrupted the output at runtime. I suggest you open the saved file in NetBeans. In the NetBeans settings dialogue, enable the options to "show control characters" and "process file as unicode" (iirc). That will cause NetBeans to display all characters your font set contains, display a square box for the ones it doesn't, and display the various icons for control characters. If column alignment in your file is important (for example a set number of spaces between tokens and operators), you should be using a monospace font. The best one I've ever used is available here: http://code.google.com/p/buddypress-media/downloads/detail?name=ttf-bitstream-vera-1.10.zip It's also really easy to read. For text streams in production site, take a look at BP-Media's sanitizer classes. Unicode to ASCII to HTML entity conversion is a tricky business, and these functions will ensure you get the right kind of output no matter what users throw at you. For example, people embedding unicode sequences in an ASCII stream. http://code.google.com/p/buddypress-media/source/browse/bp_media/trunk/core/database/class.database.sanitizers.php ^C^ =================================================== On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 8:57 AM, Jacob Kruger <jacobk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Ok, specifically told that storage field to make use of UTF8_unicode_ci, > and tried re-uploading text file that specifically saved from word using > UTF8 encoding, and, the text content is still full of garbage characters..? > > Suppose might try something like copying/pasting from text file in > notepad, into something like a textarea field, but, don't think that would > always be the perfect process in this site. > > Will try a couple of other options with regard to DB encoding, and see if > come right, but, let's see... > > Jacob Kruger > Blind Biker > Skype: BlindZA > '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Niel Archer" < > spam-free@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: <php-windows@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2012 4:22 PM > Subject: Re: Characters in an uploaded text file being corrupted > > > Hi >> >> Ok, and, FWIW, this test text file is a word document that have saved as >>> a >>> text file, and when now resaved it using specifically unicode encoding, >>> it >>> seemd to eliminate this issue, >>> >> >> Make sure the MySQL Db, table, field are correctly set for the encoding. >> MySQL does not default to UTF-8 so you have to manually set it when >> creating the Db/table. IIRC, newer versions can also have the encoding >> set per field. >> >> but would have thought there might be a >>> relatively simple way to handle something like encoding conversion in PHP >>> itself..? >>> >> >> PHP cannot read minds, unfortunately. There are ways to handle encoding >> conversions, but I don't think anyone would call them 'simple'. ;-) >> See the Multibyte String extension for one way. >> >> -- >> Niel Archer >> >> >> -- >> PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) >> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php >> >> > > -- > PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > >
