Saving unicode or utf8 data using PHP-MYSQL

Saving data in MYSQL is almost common in every website. When it comes to unicode date there is a bit of overhead that needs to be taken care of. I am listing those settings step by step.

1. Set table's collation to "utf8_general_ci"

 

 ALTER TABLE <table_name> CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;  

 

2. Set the column's collation to "utf8_general_ci"

 

 ALTER TABLE <table_name> MODIFY <column_name> VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;

3. In PHP use the below code while the data is being inserted into the table.

 mysqli_query($conn,"SET names 'utf8'");