When exported to CSV russian characters won't display

Question

I have this code which I use to export a query in CSV, the problem is that, if I open this with Excel the russian characters won't display, but if I open it with numbers(Mac) they display.

Now, I can't get what's wrong with this. I've added some lines I saw on internet and nothing..

<?php
/*
 * PHP code to export MySQL data to CSV
 * http://salman-w.blogspot.com/2009/07/export-mysql-data-to-csv-using-php.html
 *
 * Sends the result of a MySQL query as a CSV file for download
 */

 /*
  * establish database connection
  */

$conn = mysql_connect('', '', '') or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db('', $conn) or die(mysql_error($conn));
mysql_query("SET NAMES UTF8");

/*
 * execute sql query
 */

$query = sprintf('SELECT fields FROM table');
$result = mysql_query($query, $conn) or die(mysql_error($conn));

/*
 * send response headers to the browser
 * following headers instruct the browser to treat the data as a csv file called export.csv
 */

header('Content-Type: text/csv; charset=utf-8');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=hostess.csv');

/*
 * output header row (if atleast one row exists)
 */

$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
if ($row) {
    echocsv(array_keys($row));
}

/*
 * output data rows (if atleast one row exists)
 */

while ($row) {
    echocsv($row);
    $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
}

/*
 * echo the input array as csv data maintaining consistency with most CSV implementations
 * - uses double-quotes as enclosure when necessary
 * - uses double double-quotes to escape double-quotes 
 * - uses CRLF as a line separator
 */

function echocsv($fields)
{
    $separator = '';
    foreach ($fields as $field) {
        if (preg_match('/\\r|\\n|,|"/', $field)) {
            $field = '"' . str_replace('"', '""', $field) . '"';
        }
        echo $separator . $field;
        $separator = ',';
    }
    echo "\r\n";
}
?>

Answer 1

The script was not created for UTF-8 encoded data. It dumps the data almost as-is. The resulting CSV file will contain (probably) valid UTF-8 encoded data but no signature. In the absence of signature, some software will use heuristics to detect the encoding; others, like Excel, won't.

You must tell excel to treat the file as UTF-8 encoded. For this, you need to import the file in Excel (Data > Get External Data > From Text) instead of opening it directly (double-clicking or using File > Open). Inside the Text Import Wizard, choose the appropriate encoding and Excel should import the data correctly. See screenshots below.

Alternately, you could try adding the UTF-8 signature manually. I haven't tried it myself.

// ...
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=hostess.csv');
echo "\xEF\xBB\xBF";
// ...