Read Persian (Unicode chars) text file using php

Question

I am reading one Persian text file (using PHP) with the help of below code:

/* Reading the file name and the book (UTF-8) */
if(file_exists($SourceDirectoryFile))
{
        $NameBook  = "name.txt";
        $AboutBook = "about.txt";

        $myFile = "Computer-Technolgy/2 ($i)/".$NameBook;
        $fh = fopen($myFile, 'r');
        $theData = fread($fh, filesize($myFile));
        fclose($fh);
        echo 'Name file: '. $theData.'<hr/>';
}

name.txt file contents :

آموزش شبكه هاي کامپيوتري (LEARNING NETWORK)

Name file: ����� ���� ��� ��������� (LEARNING NETWORK)

Answer 1

The reason you are seeing this is because you are just echoing the contents raw. Your browser will need more information, in order to display the message in its correct form.

The easiest way is to use the snippet below.

/* Reading the file name and the book (UTF-8) */
if (file_exists($SourceDirectoryFile))
{

    $NameBook  = "name.txt";
    $AboutBook = "about.txt";

    // Using file_get_contents instead. Less code
    $myFile   = "Computer-Technolgy/2 ($i)/" . $NameBook;
    $contents = file_get_contents($myFile);

    // I want my browser to display UTF-8 characters
    header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8');
    echo 'Name file: ' .  $contents . '<hr/>';
}

Please note that the header function needs to be executed at the beginning of the output to the browser. So for instance if you have additional data that is displayed prior to this function, you need to move the header statement at the top. Otherwise you will end up with warnings on screen that the headers have already been set.