PHP+MYSQL encoding, utf8_polish_ci - php

Question

Hello i have problem with encoding in my script.
My connect function looks like:
function connect()
{
$conn = mysql_connect('192.168.1.127', 'mason_frik', 'difficultpassword');
if (!$conn)
{
die('Nie można się połaczyć!');
}
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'; COLLATE='utf8_polish_ci';");
mysql_query("SET character_set_client = 'utf8'");
mysql_query("SET character_set_results = 'utf8'");
mysql_query("SET character_set_connection = 'utf8'");
mysql_select_db('mason_konkursy');
}
In my database i'm using utf8_polish_ci everywhere.
In my script i'm getting something from other page and i need to search it in my db like this:
//this function is parsing other page and get innertext of SPAN.
$question = GetSpanData($FirstQuestion, "dnn_ctr1975_ViewContestsContestNew_dc_question_lblQuestion");
$wyn = mysql_query('SELECT * FROM questions WHERE question="'.$question.'"');
$wynik = mysql_fetch_array($wyn, MYSQL_ASSOC);
Result is bool(false).
When i copy query to my phpmyadmin and paste to sql it is working, but from my script it didn't.
Can You help me?

Answer 1

This line is wrong:
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'; COLLATE='utf8_polish_ci';");
The correct syntax is:
SET NAMES 'charset_name' COLLATE 'collation_name'
In your case, the code would the be:
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8' COLLATE 'utf8_polish_ci';");
And read the first comment posted by eggyal: mysql_* functions should not be used anymore, they are deprecated and will be removed from PHP in a future version.
You may be missing a call to mysql_real_escape_string in this line of code (it is not possible for me to be sure, it depends what the function GetSpanData exactly does):
mysql_query('SELECT * FROM questions WHERE question="'.$question.'"');
to escape the data properly, you must use the mysql_real_escape_string function:
mysql_query('SELECT * FROM questions WHERE question="'.mysql_real_escape_string($question).'"');