note 101735 added to function.mysql-set-charset

Hi there, I've actually solved my problem, but I don't know WHY it's solved, and am hoping someone can explain a couple of things. It has to do with French character encoding, and mysql_set_charset(). I'm developing a new Web application- nothing too complex: I'm on a Windows machine, using XAMPP as the server, MySQL 5.1.41 as the database, PHP 5.3.1 as the language version, and Dreamweaver as the IDE. In the DB, all relevant columns, and the DB, collate at uft-8_general_ci. I first noticed that DB-extracted data with accented French characters showed up as the "diamond-?" character instead. So I started searching for answers and got more confused: the PHP pages were already set to utf-8 for content, as was the database. When I tried applying the mysql_set_charset() function to fix it, I got error messages saying that "mysql_set_charset() expects parameter 2 to be resource".... this didn't make sense because the coding was as follows: $dbc = mysqli_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_NAME); mysql_set_charset('utf-8',$dbc); I also went into the php.ini file to check the character setting- however, it was already commented out. Finally, out of frustration I tried setting the page charset to "iso-8859-1", and amazingly (because it seems to contradict almost everything I'd been reading online) it worked! So, I'm hoping that someone can explain: a) why the iso-8859-1 charset fixed the French character problem where utf-8 failed, and b) why mysql_set_charset() failed to work, and what the resource is that it wants? Thank you. ---- Server IP: 69.147.83.197 Probable Submitter: 65.92.114.75 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-set-charset.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/101735 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/101735/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/101735/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/101735/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/101735/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/101735/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/101735/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/101735 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/101735 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php