Req #52453 [NEW]: Connection charset seems arbitrary

From: Operating system: Linux PHP version: 5.3.3 Package: MySQLi related Bug Type: Feature/Change Request Bug description:Connection charset seems arbitrary Description: ------------ The connection_charset used by a mysql/mysqli connection seems arbitrary - at least I cannot figure out how it is determined. The documentation provides no clues as to which charset is used by default. I've tried connecting to different mysql servers from different shell servers and can't figure out how the default charset is determined. As to find out which one is used, open a mysql/mysqli (procedural or object-oriented doesn't matter) connection and use mysql_client_encoding() / mysqli_get_charset() or "SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set%';" to find out. This probably is just a documentation problem, but maybe the default could be chosen more sensibly: for example, the mysql server database's charset seems the most sensible default. For example, connecting from a shell that has en_US.UTF-8 as locale, I get: character_set_client: utf8 character_set_connection: utf8 character_set_database: utf8 character_set_filesystem: binary character_set_results: utf8 character_set_server: utf8 character_set_system: utf8 character_sets_dir: /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ Switching to en_US.iso88591 doesn't change anything. So it would seem some server setting determines the charset, right? However, connecting to the same mysql server from another system (though from intranet instead of internet), I get: character_set_client: latin1 character_set_connection: latin1 character_set_database: utf8 character_set_filesystem: binary character_set_results: latin1 character_set_server: utf8 character_set_system: utf8 character_sets_dir: /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ Again, the client locale doesn't influence this. -- Edit bug report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52453&edit=1 -- Try a snapshot (PHP 5.2): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=trysnapshot52 Try a snapshot (PHP 5.3): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=trysnapshot53 Try a snapshot (trunk): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=trysnapshottrunk Fixed in SVN: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=fixed Fixed in SVN and need be documented: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=needdocs Fixed in release: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=alreadyfixed Need backtrace: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=needtrace Need Reproduce Script: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=needscript Try newer version: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=oldversion Not developer issue: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=support Expected behavior: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=notwrong Not enough info: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=notenoughinfo Submitted twice: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=submittedtwice register_globals: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=globals PHP 4 support discontinued: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=php4 Daylight Savings: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=dst IIS Stability: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=isapi Install GNU Sed: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=gnused Floating point limitations: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=float No Zend Extensions: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=nozend MySQL Configuration Error: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=52453&r=mysqlcfg