Why are Persian characters displayed incorrectly when migrating from a proprietary database engine to CodeIgniter's UTF-8 encoding?

Mysterious Character Encoding Disparities in Data Storage and Retrieval

In the realm of data handling, a perplexing enigma has emerged, leading to data discrepancies between an older and a newly developed script. Both scripts work with Persian characters, which pose a unique encoding challenge.

The new script relies on CodeIgniter and adheres to UTF-8 character encoding standards. However, when fetching data stored using an older script, characters are displayed with an unconventional encoding format. In contrast, the old script, which utilizes a proprietary database engine known as TUBADBENGINE, displays the same data correctly.

The crux of the issue lies in the differences between how the two scripts manage data storage and retrieval.

Data Storage Process:

The original script inserts Persian characters into the database using its unique engine. During this process, the engine employs unknown encoding rules, resulting in characters being stored in a peculiar format (e.g., عمران instead of اااا).

Data Retrieval Process:

• Old Script: When retrieving data, the original script utilizes its own engine, which seamlessly converts the encoded characters back to their intended Persian counterparts (e.g., عمران is displayed as اااا).
• New Script: The new script, lacking the specialized encoding logic of the old engine, interprets the stored characters directly as UTF-8, leading to the incorrect display of characters (e.g., عمران is shown as a garbled string).

The Encoding Dilemma:

The old script's proprietary engine employs an unknown encoding scheme that differs from UTF-8, causing the data to be stored in an unconventional format. When the new script reads this data, it assumes it is in UTF-8 encoding, leading to the discrepancies in character representation.

Resolving the Discrepancies:

To rectify this encoding conundrum, one must identify the encoding format used by the old script's engine. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to convert the stored data back to its original Persian characters.

Potential Solution:

Experimentally, one could attempt to convert the stored data to various encodings (e.g., ISO-8859-6) and observe if the results match the intended Persian characters.

Conclusion:

The discrepancies in data encoding arise from the different encoding rules employed by the original script's proprietary engine and the newly developed script's reliance on UTF-8. Resolving this issue requires identifying the encoding format used by the old engine or manually converting the stored data to a more compatible encoding scheme.

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