AW: Unicode: LC 7.0 - PHP - MySQL?

[Tiemo Hollmann TB]

Hello Peter,
thank you for taking your time for your helpful explanations. I still have
two issues left.
I found in the SQL export of my db that it is UTF-8 encoded. So perhaps the
definition of a collation "ascii_general_ci" defines a "subset" of UTF-8?

As far as I understand it now, I should pass all LC strings with
uniEncode(string,UTF8) to the PHP because of the UTF-8 of MySQL. Probably I
will fiddle around with uniEncode/uniDecode at the interface to the PHPs and
see with which encode parameter the correct string gets into the MySQL db. 

On the other side I am importing data from a Valentina-DB. Where I have to
set the Encoding to Macintosh / Latin, depending on the platform. Does this
platform related conversion gets obsolete with LC 7 UniCode, or is this
still valid, because of data coming from outside, though Valentina probably
also is Unicode.

Thanks for coaching
Tiemo







> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: use-livecode [mailto:use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com] Im
Auftrag
> von Peter W A Wood
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 30. Oktober 2014 08:30
> An: How to use LiveCode
> Betreff: Re: Unicode: LC 7.0 - PHP - MySQL?
> 
> Hello Tiemo
> 
> I'm not sure that I have all the answers you are looking for but I hope
this
> will help a little. It is a simplification though to try and make things
> understandable.
> 
> > On 30 Oct 2014, at 00:11, Tiemo Hollmann TB <toolbook at kestner.de> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have a LC 6 program communicating through PHP with a MySQL db.
> > Because my background about Unicode, PHP and MySQL is limited I wonder
> > what I have to care about, when migrating to LC 7.
> >
> > I have read the release notes of LC 7. My limited thinking was, that
> > UniCode really has a unique code for each sign on the planet. But why
> > is there a
> > UTF-8 / UTF-16.
> 
> Yes, UniCode does have a unique code for (almost) every sign on the
planet.
> The unique codes are known as codepoints. There are so many of them that
the
> numbers allocated to them exceed the maximum size of one "character" (or
even
> two). They do all fit into 4 characters though. UTF-8 is a way of storing
the
> Unicode codepoints in single (8-bit) "characters". It may take one, two or
> three of them to store a Unicode codepoint. UTF-16 is a way of storing
Unicode
> codepoints in double (16-bit) "characters". The vast majority of Unicode
> codepoints fit into a single "double character", some take two.
> 
> 
> > Which one is LC using?
> 
> Internally LiveCode uses UTF-16.
> 
> > Which one is my MySQL db using?
> 
> I suspect that MySQL normally uses UTF-8, I'm sure one of the database
experts
> can correct me if I am wrong. However, what is most important is which
> encoding system was used to create the data in the first place.
> 
> > Idon't find any information about UTF-8/16 in my db description. How
> > is the collation of the db related to UTF-x and to LC?. My tables are
> > collated in ascii_general_ci. In some of my PHPs a "COLLATE
> latin1_swedish_ci" is used.
> > I have no idea why this Swedish collation is in my german PHP and how
> > it can be compatible with my ascii_general_ci DB. (The PHPs are made
> > by third
> > party)
> 
> This suggests that your PHP scripts are expecting the data they received
to be
> have "encoded" in a specific system, either "ascii_general_ci" or
> "latin1_swedish_ci". They are different from Unicode.
> 
> >
> > What do I have to change in my LC program when migrating to 7. Where
> > to start?
> 
> As best as I understand, you will need to use textDecode to convert any
> external text (ie from PHP or MySQL) to LiveCode text. You will need to
use
> textEncode to convert any LiveCode text to send to any external source.
> 
> > Is LCs Unicode really the magic thing, where I don't have to care
> > about any charset related thing and all my thinking is just waste?
> 
> Internally, it really is magic (from my point of view). Sadly the
magicians in
> Edinburgh have yet to come up with a spell that magically converts
somebody
> else's data to LiveCode Text (UTF16). They need a little help from us
users to
> tell them how the external text is encoded. (That has always been the case
> when combining differently encoded text data since LiveCode 1).
> 
> Regards
> 
> Peter
> 
> 
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