How can the collation settings in a MySQL database affect the display of special characters in PHP output?
The collation settings in a MySQL database can affect the display of special characters in PHP output because they determine how the database sorts and compares characters. If the collation settings are not compatible with the character encoding used in the PHP script, special characters may not display correctly. To solve this issue, make sure that the collation settings in the MySQL database match the character encoding used in the PHP script.
// Set the character encoding for the MySQL connection
mysqli_set_charset($connection, 'utf8');
// Retrieve data from the database
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
// Output the data with correct encoding
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
echo mb_convert_encoding($row['column_name'], 'UTF-8', 'UTF-8');
}