MySQL Database error message help needed please

[angelicdezigns]

Good Evening,

I have just discovered my ‘local host/phpmyadmin 2.8.0.3, in my MySQL Databases control panel (finally lol) and then clicked ‘manage now’ in Delete/Edit/Manage a MySQL Database, a new browser opened with phpmyadmin, with the following error message in a yellow box, and I have absolutely no idea what it means.

The mbstring PHP extension was not found and you seem to be using a multibyte charset. Without the mbstring extension phpMyAdmin is unable to split strings correctly and it may result in unexpected results.

Could someone please explain in 'newbie' terms what this means, and how I would go about rectifying it.

Thank you for your help
Kind Regards
Nikki

Also, under the database drop down selection on the left hand side of my phpmyadmin I have got 2 different databases one with (16) after the name and the other with (93) after the name, I only have one website, so am confused why there are 2 databases.

[MarW]

Hi!

You can find more information about the second database (with 16 tables) here:http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/...on-schema.html

Summary:
"INFORMATION_SCHEMA is the information database, the place that stores information about all the other databases that the MySQL server maintains. Inside INFORMATION_SCHEMA there are several read-only tables. They are actually views, not base tables, so there are no files associated with them."

So you don't really need to worry about them.

I don't know much about PHP, so I'm not sure about this one, but the error message may mean that you need the mbstring extension to use a charset like UTF-8, maybe for non-english characters. If you need to change data using PHPMyAdmin then the international characters will be messed up.
If you only use english, then again you probably don't need to worry about this.

Best to try modifying some data on a test database and see what happens. Or even better wait for someone more educated than me to give a correct answer...

[angelicdezigns]

Bless you MarW,

Thank you for that, I will check the link out in a bit. I know I will be addicted to this when I have worked out how to use it..lol..

Thanks Nikki