PHP PDO with Special Characters - pdo

Question

I am using PDO for MySQL database connection, selecting, updating and deleting.
But I have a problem with selecting rows with special characters, for instance, I want to select a page title with 'Judge-Fürstová Mila',
Table page,
id title content
1 Judge-Fürstová Mila xxx
SQL,
SELECT *
FROM page
WHERE title = 'Judge-Fürstová Mila'
Returns result if I query via phpmyadmin.
But it return 0 with PDO,
$sql = ' SELECT *
FROM page
WHERE title = ?';
$items = $connection->fetch_assoc($sql,'Judge-Fürstová Mila');
Below is my db class,
class database_pdo
{
# database handler
protected $connection = null;
# make a connection
public function __construct($dsn,$username,$password)
{
try
{
# MySQL with PDO_MYSQL
$this->connection = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password);
$this->connection->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
}
catch (PDOException $e)
{
# call the get_error function
$this->get_error($e);
}
}
# don't forget to add getter method to get $this->connection, it's just a good practice.
public function get_connection()
{
return $this->connection;
}
public function fetch_assoc($query, $params = array())
{
try
{
# prepare the query
$stmt = $this->connection->prepare($query);
# if $params is not an array, let's make it array with one value of former $params
if (!is_array($params)) $params = array($params);
# execute the query
$stmt->execute($params);
# return the result
return $stmt->fetch();
}
catch (PDOException $e)
{
# call the get_error function
$this->get_error($e);
}
}
Have I missed something in my db class or something else?

Answer 1

Try to add charset=UTF-8 in your $dsn, and change
$this->connection = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password);
to
$this->connection = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password, array(PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => "SET NAMES utf8"));
I believe it is that SET NAMES utf8 thingie, at least it was in my case