PHPDeveloper.org http://www.phpdeveloper.org Up-to-the Minute PHP News, views and community en-us Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:18:04 -0500 30 <![CDATA[Dokeos Blog: mbstring vs iconv]]> http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/10034 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/10034 In this post on the Dokeos blog, there's a comparison of the mbstring function and the iconv library as it pertains to their use on multi-byte strings.

I was wondering today why use mbstring rather than iconv in Dokeos, and honestly I didn't remember exactly why I had chosen mbstring in the past, but finding information about the *differences* between the two. [...] Searching a bit more, I found a PPT presentation from Carlos Hoyos on Google.

Essentially, it boils down to how the library is integrated - mbstring is bundled and iconv is pulled from an external source. So, if you're looking for maximum portability, he recommends mbstring.

]]> Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:18:08 -0500 <![CDATA[Riff Blog: Console encoding in PHP-GTK apps]]> http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/6738 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/6738 PHP-GTKers working in English-related applications, don't have a problem with debugging messages output to a console when debugging, but applications on a more international front have issues with their output. But help has been found in this new post on the Riff Blog - a method for correctly encoding PHP-GTK applications.

PHP scripts are typically stored under UTF-8 encoding to limit i18n headaches, while the console in which their output will be displayed is normally configured to some regional encoding, like IBM850 in Windows/XP French.

So we need a workaround...

He splits the process out into a few steps, each with its own explanation and code:

  • Builtin tools
  • Buffering
  • Flushing
  • PHP-GTK is not PHP for the Web
  • Auto-flushing
All wrapped up with a final solution - using the iconv functionality in combination with some output buffering to correctly display the message.

]]> Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:58:00 -0600 <![CDATA[Christian Stocker's Blog: PHP 5, OS X, fink and iconv]]> http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4622 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/4622 Christian Stocker has a quick new post with a solution for those Mac users out there that would like to use the iconv extension with fink.

If you want to get the iconv extension properly running with PHP 5 and fink on OS X, you need the following configure option

--with-iconv=/sw/

and then it should work.

Hope that helps others, too.

And, apparently, it does - given the one comment below it so far that has a positive response... ]]> Fri, 06 Jan 2006 07:23:47 -0600