What is the significance of setting the character encoding when reading a CSV file in PHP?

Setting the character encoding when reading a CSV file in PHP is important to ensure that special characters are interpreted correctly. If the character encoding is not specified, it can lead to issues like garbled text or incorrect data processing. By setting the correct character encoding, you can ensure that the data is read and processed accurately. 

// Specify the character encoding when reading a CSV file
$filename = 'data.csv';
$handle = fopen($filename, 'r');

// Set the character encoding to UTF-8
stream_filter_append($handle, 'convert.iconv.UTF-8/ASCII');

// Read the CSV file line by line
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle)) !== false) {
    // Process the CSV data
}

fclose($handle);

Keywords

PHP character encoding CSV file reading significance

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