现在大部分具有国际化特征的软件核心字符处理都是以 Unicode 为基础的，在软件运行时根据当时的ocale/Lang/Codepage 设置确定相应的本地字符编码设置，并依此处理本地字符。在处理过程中需要实现 Unicode 和本地字符集的相互转换，甚或以 Unicode 为中间的两个不同本地字符集的相互转换。这种方式在网络环境下被进一步延伸，任何网络两端的字符信息也需要根据字符集的设置转换成可接受的内容。
数据库中的字符集编码问题
流行的关系数据库系统都支持数据库字符集编码，也就是说在创建数据库时可以指定它自己的字符集设置，数据库的数据以指定的编码形式存储。当应用程序访问数据时，在入口和出口处都会有字符集编码的转换。对于中文数据，数据库字符编码的设置应当保证数据的完整性。GB2312、GBK、UTF-8 等都是可选的数据库字符集编码;当然我们也可以选择 ISO8859-1 (8-bit)，只是我们得在应
用程序写数据之前先将 16Bit 的一个汉字或 Unicode 拆分成两个 8-bit 的字符，读数据之后也需要将两个字节合并起来，同时还要判别其中的 SBCS 字符，因此我们并不推荐采用 ISO8859-1 作为数据库字符集编码。这样不但没有充分利用数据库自身的字符集编码支持，而且同时也增加了编程的复杂度。编程时，可以先用数据库管理系统提供的管理功能检查其中的中文数据是否正确。
PHP 程序在查询数据库之前，首先执行 mysql_query("SET NAMES xxxx"); 其中 xxxx 是你网页的编码(charset=xxxx)，如果网页中 charset=utf8，则 xxxx=utf8，如果网页中 charset=gb2312，则xxxx=gb2312，几乎所有 WEB 程序，都有一段连接数据库的公共代码，放在一个文件里，在这文件里，加入 mysql_query("SET NAMES xxxx") 就可以了。
SET NAMES 显示客户端发送的 SQL 语句中使用什么字符集。因此，SET NAMES utf-8 语句告诉服务器“将来从这个客户端传来的信息采用字符集 utf-8”。它还为服务器发送回客户端的结果指定了字符集(例如，如果你使用一个 SELECT 语句，它表示列值使用了什么字符集)。
定位问题时常用的技巧
定位中文编码问题通常采用最笨的也是最有效的办法―在你认为有嫌疑的程序处理后打印字符串的内码。通过打印字符串的内码，你可以发现什么时候中文字符被转换成 Unicode，什么时候Unicode 被转回中文内码，什么时候一个中文字成了两个 Unicode 字符，什么时候中文字符串被转成了一串问号，什么时候中文字符串的高位被截掉了……
取用合适的样本字符串也有助于区分问题的类型。如："aa啊 aa?@aa" 等中英相间，GB、GBK特征字符均有的字符串。一般来说，英文字符无论怎么转换或处理，都不会失真(如果遇到了，可以尝试着增加连续的英文字母长度)。
解决各种应用的乱码问题
1) 使用 标签设置页面编码
这个标签的作用是声明客户端的浏览器用什么字符集编码显示该页面，xxx 可以为 GB2312、GBK、UTF-8(和 MySQL 不同，MySQL 是 UTF8)等等。因此，大部分页面可以采用这种方式来告诉浏览器显示这个页面的时候采用什么编码，这样才不会造成编码错误而产生乱码。但是有的时候我们会发现有了这句还是不行，不管 xxx 是哪一种，浏览器采用的始终都是一种编码，这个情况我后面会谈到。
Please note, belongs to HTML information. It is just a statement. It only indicates that the server has passed the HTML information to the browser.
2) header("content-type:text/html; charset=xxx");
The function of this function header() is to send the information in the brackets to the http header. If the content in the brackets is as stated in the text, the effect is the same as The tags are basically the same. If you compare the first one, you will find that the characters are similar. But the difference is that if there is this function, the browser will always use the xxx encoding you requested and will never be disobedient, so this function is very useful. Why is this? Then we have to talk about the difference between http header and HTML information:
The http header is a string sent by the server before sending HTML information to the browser using the http protocol. and The tag belongs to HTML information, so the content sent by header() reaches the browser first. The popular point is that header() has a higher priority than (I don’t know if I can say this). If a php page has both header("content-type:text/html;charset=xxx") and header("content-type:text/html;charset=xxx"), the browser will only recognize the former http header and not the meta. Of course, this function can only be used within php pages.
There is also a question left, why does the former definitely work, but the latter sometimes does not work? This is the reason why we want to talk about Apache next.
3) AddDefaultCharset
In the conf folder in the Apache root directory, there is the entire Apache configuration document httpd.conf.
Use a text editor to open httpd.conf. Line 708 (different versions may be different) contains AddDefaultCharset xxx, where xxx is the encoding name. The meaning of this line of code: Set the character set in the http header of the web page file in the entire server to your default xxx character set. Having this line is equivalent to adding a line of header("content-type:text/html; charset=xxx") to each file. Now you can understand why The setting is utf-8, but the browser always uses gb2312.
If there is header("content-type:text/html; charset=xxx") in the web page, the default character set will be changed to the character set you set, so this function will always be useful. If you add a "#" in front of AddDefaultCharset xxx, comment out this sentence, and the page does not contain header ("content-type..."), then it is the meta tag's turn to take effect.
The priority order of the above is listed below:
.. header("content-type:text/html; charset=xxx")
.. AddDefaultCharset xxx
..
If you are a web programmer, it is recommended to add a header ("content-type: text/html; charset=xxx") to each of your pages, so as to ensure that it can be displayed correctly on any server. Portability is also relatively strong.
4) default_charset configuration in php.ini:
Default_charset = "gb2312" in php.ini defines the default language character set of php. It is generally recommended to comment out this line and let the browser automatically select the language based on the charset in the web page header instead of making a mandatory requirement. This way, web services in multiple languages can be provided on the same server.
Conclusion
In fact, Chinese coding in PHP development is not as complicated as imagined. Although there are no fixed rules for positioning and solving problems, and various operating environments are also different, the underlying principles are the same. Understanding the knowledge of character sets is the basis for solving character problems. However, with the changes in the Chinese character set, not only PHP programming, but also problems in Chinese information processing will still exist for some time.