How to encode/decode PHP - LC on Win/Mac?

[Tiemo Hollmann TB]

Hello,

I am having PHPs communicating with LC 6.5.2. In the PHP files I am having
Umlaute entities in fix texts as returning values to LC.

When returning to Windows, the Umlaute are displayed correctly, on Mac not.
When substituting the Umlaute by HTML entities (ä), the Umlaute are
displayed correctly on Mac, but on Windows I see the "ä". So probably I
have to translate the PHP returning values with UniDecode, depending on the
platform.

For my understanding, which coding do PHPs have? Does it depend on on which
platform they are originally written? Does it depend on the FTP-transfer
options? Does it depend on the server platform (Unix)? Do I have to set a
coding in the PHP, like the charset in HTMLs?

What is the correct way to decode PHP text with special entities in LC on
both platforms?

Thanks for any insight

Tiemo