Question

I am parsing a XML and putting it into MySQL. Now MySQL is showing following error for some specific records inserting:

SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1366 Incorrect string value: '\xEAm-Kh\xEA...'

When i check the data inside XML, it is showing like iêm-Khê
So the Special Character ê is transforming into xEA
What is it?

How can i get it solved to maintain & put its original Character into Database?

FYI, here is some info.:

• My whole MySQL DB itself is using latin1_swedish_ci
• But that TABLE & COLUMN are using utf8_general_ci
• ** When i manually Copy/Paste that iêm-Khê values into the MySQL Record directly, it is saved. (I mean, MySQL is accepting that Special Characters.) So i think the issue is at the Coding side.

Answer 1

After some additional research I ran across two possible approaches to a solution:

- the first option is to use php's utf8_encode() function.
- the second option uses some code with the PDO using set names (though there seemed to be some discussion as to whether or not this worked for everyone.

$handle = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=dbname",
    'username', 'password', 
    array(PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => "SET NAMES utf8"));

The following link had some other useful information:
See here