# mysqli_set_charset

# mysqli->set_charset

(PHP 5 >= 5.0.5)

mysqli->set_charset — Sets the default client character set

### Description

Procedural style:

bool mysqli_set_charset ( mysqli `$link` , string `$charset` )

Object oriented style (method):

mysqli
bool set_charset ( string `$charset` )

Sets the default character set to be used when sending data from and to the database server.

### Parameters

`link`

  Procedural style only: A link identifier returned by mysqli_connect() or mysqli_init()

`charset`

  The charset to be set as default.

### Return Values

Returns `TRUE` on success or `FALSE` on failure.

### Notes

> Note: To use this function on a Windows platform you need MySQL client library version 4.1.11 or above (for MySQL 5.0 you need 5.0.6 or above). It can be downloaded at » http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/php/.

### Examples

Example#1 Object oriented style

`<?php
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "test");
/* check connection */
if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
printf("Connect failed: %s\n", mysqli_connect_error());
exit();
}
/* change character set to utf8 */
if (!$mysqli->set_charset("utf8")) {
printf("Error loading character set utf8: %s\n", $mysqli->error);
} else {
printf("Current character set: %s\n", $mysqli->character_set_name());
}
$mysqli->close();
?>`

Example#2 Procedural style

`<?php
$link = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'my_user', 'my_password', 'test');
/* check connection */
if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
printf("Connect failed: %s\n", mysqli_connect_error());
exit();
}
/* change character set to utf8 */
if (!mysqli_set_charset($link, "utf8")) {
printf("Error loading character set utf8: %s\n", mysqli_error($link));
} else {
printf("Current character set: %s\n", mysqli_character_set_name($link));
}
mysqli_close($link);
?>`

The above example will output:

    Current character set: utf8

### See Also

- mysqli_character_set_name()
- mysqli_real_escape_string()