mysql - PHP json_encode encoding accents in words -

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• reference: why “special” unicode characters encoded weird using json_encode? 1 answer

i'm using opencart, , althought have seen every post on google subject, can't figure out why database saving letters accents in non utf8 encoding.

print_r($this->request->post); 

returns: array ( [pfa_status] => 1 [pfa_text] => 'cobrança' ); after aplying json_encode becomes:

{"pfa_status":"1","pfa_text":"cobran\u00e7a"} 

now looking @ possible solutions through web:

1. i use <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
2. i have tried header('content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8');
3. all files have format utf-8 without bom
4. i use $this->connection->set_charset("utf8");
5. i use $this->connection->query("set names 'utf8'");
6. my field in database, saved json, has collation utf8_bin
7. when using json_decode remains wrong encoding
8. tried json_encode($this->request->post, json_unescaped_unicode);

so, whenever show value of pfa_text after being decoded, shows cobran\u00e7a instead of cobrança.

what missing?

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edit 1: requested, here's code sake of testing.

class controllerpfa extends controller {     public function index()     {         if (($this->request->server['request_method'] == 'post'))          {             $value = json_encode($this->request->post, json_unescaped_unicode);             print_r($value);              die();         }     } } 

so output (and take notice full current $_post response):

{"pfa_status":"1","pfa_sort_order":"","pfa":[{"payment_method":"cod","description":{"1":{"name":"tax"},"3":{"name":"cobran\u00e7a"},"4":{"name":"cobran\u00e7a"}}}]} 

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edit 2: i'm using version 7.0 of php

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edit 3: solved, following function allows words inserted in database accents.

private function formatencoding($value) {     return preg_replace_callback('/\\\\u(\w{4})/', function ($matc)      {         return html_entity_decode('&#x' . $matc[1] . ';', ent_compat, 'utf-8');     }, $value); } 

so, have call formatencoding(json_encode($this->request->post));

one of options can pass in second parameter of json_encode json_unescaped_unicode. described as:

encode multibyte unicode characters literally (default escape \uxxxx). available since php 5.4.0.

so if pass that, should work because prevents them being escaped:

$json = json_encode($data, json_unescaped_unicode);