another Japanese website problem

i have read the recent post about Japanese websites which is really useful but i am also trying to include a Japanese translated version of my site. The problem i am having is simple. I am trying to store the Japanese text in a Database so that the pages can quite easily change the language and i dont have to store multiple copies of the page. but the problem is that the Database doesnt process the characters correctly. it returns the numerical value of sum kind.

could this be something to do with the host\ server and if so what can i ask them to do so that i can store such characters.

many thanks

ed

Have you checked the encoding? Shift-JIS I believe is the most common. If one of the programs/db uses a different encoding to save/process some characters would be wrong because that encoding indicates a different character be used.

On the server/isp side-can you upload to a different site and test it from there?

What is the database server?

I'm very experienced with globalization/localization of web apps. on the Microsoft platform.

If you enter text through the browser the request object will sometimes return unicode for the characters, ie. &#4e87; instead of the character.

This often happens if you copy/paste the text instead of type it, maybe because the encoding/char-set of the source and the destination is not the same.

i only have access to one database online. PREMIERHOST.com

im not sure on the coding they use but i am in the process of trying to sort it out with them! its just i dnt knw wat basically to ask.

in regards to privatejohns comment about copying in and not typing you are right thats all i am able to do i have had the text encoded into Japanese and saved in ms word docs for me to copy and paste into the database.

can you suggest a plan of action because personally i really dont know how to go about this!!!

cheers all

ed

Do you have the proper fonts installed on your computer?

Can you change the encoding/char-set on the web page?

Do you have control of the script that collects the data and stores it in the database? and what kind of script is it (asp/.net/php)?

1) do i have the fonts installedo on my comp?

i assume so because i have about 30 word docs with the japanese squiggles(writing) in it! if this is wrong then where do i go to install it? and if a person wanting to view it from their browser doesnt have these fonts installed then do they have to install these fonts before they can view it on my site??

2) im not sure where or how i can change the encoding of the charset! if its on the database can you tell me where and wat to look at? (e.g what sort of title would it be under and what would i change it too)

3) i am building the site my self completely using embedded php so any modifications that are required are easily done(as long as i know what to do)


i reaally reaaly really appreciate your help

ed

Well, let's assume you got it right, when you can view the word documents.

People that visit your web-site do need to install (if they haven't already) a "language package" with the proper fonts, but on windows, you're normally prompted when you visit a site with a char-set/encoding that requires a special font.

On windows you need fonts like: MS Gothic, MS Mincho, etc.

I was asking whether you can change the char-set for the web page, from Shift-JIS to UTF-8 for example!? Using UTF-8 will allow you to mix languages on the same page, so you can have japanese, chinese, western european, etc. on the same web page.

What kind of database do your site run on? MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle??

I'm not really sure how to handle it in php, but if you get these kind of values from the request object: &#4e67;&#4e89; you actually have to store the byte array: 4e674e89 in the database. If you store the html entity values (&#xxxx, it will be hard to do a proper search in the texts (searching in east asian text is never easy!).

im using mysql.

ive been told that it is somethinig to do with double byte character set. That the DBS cannot store the Jap script. I am quite a beginner so would i have to change the text/ thingy at the top of the html page to tell the browser what script is used

I'm affraid I've got NO experience with MySql, so not much help I can offer you on that subject!

/Steen

I'm living over here in japan and noticed alot of Japanese Websites... I know this may not help or be what you want to hear, but I've noticed on many Japanese webpages that they type everything out and save it as a graphics file... This eliminates problems with those not being able to view the japanese characters... Just a small bit of info...

Nakirema

Use utf-8 (Unicode). Mysql supports it and so do most modern browsers. Make sure apache is sending out the correct headers though.

Here are two multilingual(Japanese/English) site that I built is all Unicode:

Japanese Blog Site
and
Japanese Recipe Site

This second site gets about 10,000 Japanese visitors a day, and I have yet to hear about 'Mojibake' issues. Of course, you need to have Japanese fonts installed on your machine.

One issue is mobile phones not accepting utf-8 and only shift_jis. However, this is easily overcome using output buffering.

Hi, I also have the same problem. I am using Linux, apache, mysql and php. My Japanese is stored as utf-8 as when i look in the db date, it is like &#4e87. I have no problems displaying my Japanese text in a webpage, however, when I send an email, I have problems reading it in my email client (outlook express). What headers do i need? I noticed in Outlook Express, I can change encoding to shift-jis, utf-8 etc but even if i change the encoding manually, i still get &#4e87. What to do?

Use ISO-2022-JP for mails. (Not Shift JIS).

'Send Japanese PHP Mail' addresses the problem of sending email in Japanese.

Please help ! i experienced the same problem too.. i am running on mysql and using cold fusion to do my codings. the problem is i can display jap text by hardcode but when i output them using <cfmail> they cant display. Please help i have been stressing this for days..

Hi,

I have an application which sends mails in UTF-8 format (both Japanese and english) in one message. When I recieve the mail in outlook I can see the mail properly. I could not see the message properly in Netscape 4.6, I have change the encoding to UTF-8 and downloaded bitstream charset and set the Netsape messenger then its working properly.

But When I try to see the mail in my organization specific web interface for mail checking I am not able to see the mails script properly.

Is there any thing to be set on the web server to accept UTF-8 mails? Can any body tell the probable reason?

Thanks
Ramakrishna