Zen Cart with UTF-8 database

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18 Jul 2007, 15:42

thewolf

New Zenner

Join Date:: Jul 2007
Posts:: 14
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Zen Cart with UTF-8 database

Hi,

I've installed Zen Cart 1.3.7.1 on Red Hat Enteprise Linux 4 with Plesk 8.1 (control panel), PHP 4.3.9 and MySQL 4.1.x.

I've noticed that the ZC db (created through Plesk) is using UTF-8 as charset, instead of the usual ISO-8859-1.

So far my Zen Cart installation is working fine, but I'm afraid that something may break in the future (especially when handling non-ASCII characters) due to the fact that the Zen Cart PHP application is using ISO-8859-1 as charset while the MySQL db is using UTF-8.

Should I re-install ZC using an ISO-8859-1 db instead to be on the safe side?

Or is it safe to keep the current setup?

Thanks.

18 Jul 2007, 15:46

kobra

Black Belt

Join Date:: Aug 2005
Posts:: 31,500
Plugin Contributions:: 4

Re: Zen Cart with UTF-8 database

If this is an english only site you should be ok - there are issues with altering an existing DB's colliation and one can get many strange characters if you are not careful. Select one and stick with it

18 Jul 2007, 16:19

thewolf

New Zenner

Join Date:: Jul 2007
Posts:: 14
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Re: Zen Cart with UTF-8 database

Hi,

Since this is a new ZC installation, I can still drop the db and create it from scratch using ISO-8859-1 if that is a safer choice.

What do you think?

Thanks.

18 Jul 2007, 20:54

kobra

Black Belt

Join Date:: Aug 2005
Posts:: 31,500
Plugin Contributions:: 4

Re: Zen Cart with UTF-8 database

This really depends on the default that your host has set...if like cpanel then the oneclick backups are saved in the default colliation and this can be problematic for some.

I would determine the default and use that unless you require multi language

19 Jul 2007, 09:58

thewolf

New Zenner

Join Date:: Jul 2007
Posts:: 14
Plugin Contributions:: 0

Re: Zen Cart with UTF-8 database

kobra:
This really depends on the default that your host has set...

What do you mean exactly with the default that my host has set?

Thanks.

19 Jul 2007, 11:37

kobra

Black Belt

Join Date:: Aug 2005
Posts:: 31,500
Plugin Contributions:: 4

Re: Zen Cart with UTF-8 database

What do you mean exactly with the default that my host has set?

When the mysql is installed as part of the system - the host in this case can set or configure mysql with a default colliation. Then if this is a cPanel account or Plesk and probably others - the backup facility provided in these uses the default.

If you use phpmyadmin to create the backups you can set the colliation used for the backup.