htmlspecialchars(): Invalid multibyte sequence in argument

Yii 1.1 General Discussion
1

I used the Gii CRUD Generator to create a CRUD implementation for a table (MySQL) of mine.

The database and tables are stored in UTF-8.

I’ve followed the directions at http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/16/how-to-set-up-unicode/

When I load the page at ../index.php?r=chattype I get the following error.

Can someone help?

PHP Error

htmlspecialchars(): Invalid multibyte sequence in argument

X:\_ExcludeFromBackup\furball\yii\framework\web\helpers\CHtml.php(66)

54 */

55 public static $count=0;

56

57 /**

58 * Encodes special characters into HTML entities.

59 * The {@link CApplication::charset application charset} will be used for encoding.

60 * @param string $text data to be encoded

61 * @return string the encoded data

62 * @see http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars.php

63 */

64 public static function encode($text)

65 {

66 return htmlspecialchars($text,ENT_QUOTES,Yii::app()->charset);

67 }

2

Hmm. Can you show the trace and call stack, too?

First idea: Maybe files are saved with BOM?

3

I’ll post the stack track now. To your 2nd point, which files are you referring to? I haven’t created any files myself (the Gii app did that), and my data is in a database.

4

Could be that you use a special (unicode) char for a field name?

5

i have a mysql database and it has a password column of datatype binary and then it is throwing the same problem …i am new to Yii and not good in PHP either please tell me what should i do ??

6

First thing… check your field names (not values)… that do NOT use unicode characters…

7

I have the same problem with labels. My application language is Spanish so chars like á é í ó ú or ñ are very common in labels, I’ve looking a lot to solve this with no results, my app is UTF-8 and I have no problems with special characters in the database only in labels, any ideas?


2011/12/06 19:57:14 [error] [php] htmlspecialchars() [<a href='function.htmlspecialchars'>function.htmlspecialchars</a>]: Invalid multibyte sequence in argument (/localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/helpers/CHtml.php:66)

Stack trace:

#0 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/zii/widgets/CMenu.php(144): CMenu->normalizeItems()

#1 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CBaseController.php(140): CMenu->init()

#2 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CBaseController.php(165): ImageModelController->createWidget()

#3 /webRoot/protected/views/layouts/column2.php(20): ImageModelController->widget()

#4 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CBaseController.php(119): require()

#5 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CBaseController.php(88): ImageModelController->renderInternal()

#6 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CController.php(781): ImageModelController->renderFile()

#7 /webRoot/protected/controllers/ImageModelController.php(188): ImageModelController->render()

#8 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/actions/CInlineAction.php(50): ImageModelController->actionAdmin()

#9 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CController.php(300): CInlineAction->runWithParams()

#10 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/filters/CFilterChain.php(134): ImageModelController->runAction()

#11 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/filters/CFilter.php(41): CFilterChain->run()

#12 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CController.php(1144): CAccessControlFilter->filter()

#13 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/filters/CInlineFilter.php(59): ImageModelController->filterAccessControl()

#14 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/filters/CFilterChain.php(131): CInlineFilter->filter()

#15 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CController.php(283): CFilterChain->run()

#16 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CController.php(257): ImageModelController->runActionWithFilters()

#17 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CWebApplication.php(277): ImageModelController->run()

#18 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/web/CWebApplication.php(136): CWebApplication->runController()

#19 /localPath/YiiRoot/framework/base/CApplication.php(158): CWebApplication->processRequest()

#20 /webRoot/index.php(13): CWebApplication->run()

REQUEST_URI=/webapp/imageModel/admin
8

Can you boil down your problem to the most simple code that still produces the issue? Like: Start with CHtml::encode($text), then try to render a simple CMenu widget. Also play around with different texts. If you have something reproducible, post it here.

9

Thanks for your reply, this is my most simple code that produces the error,


<?php

$this->breadcrumbs=array(

	'Fotos'=>array('index'),

	$model->id,

);


$this->menu=array(

	array('label'=>'Listar Imágenes', 'url'=>array('index')),

	array('label'=>'Create Image', 'url'=>array('create')),

	array('label'=>'Update Image', 'url'=>array('update', 'id'=>$model->id)),

	array('label'=>'Delete Image', 'url'=>'#', 'linkOptions'=>array('submit'=>array('delete','id'=>$model->id),'confirm'=>'Are you sure you want to delete this item?')),

	array('label'=>'Manage Image', 'url'=>array('admin')),

);

?>





<h1>Foto #<?php echo $model->id; ?></h1>

	<div class="successMessage">

		<?php echo Yii::app()->user->getFlash('success'); ?>

			 </div>

			 </br>


<?php $this->widget('zii.widgets.CDetailView', array(

	'data'=>$model,

	'attributes'=>array(

		'id',

		'description',

		'file_name',

		'create_time',

		'create_user_id',

		'update_time',

		'update_user_id',

	),

)); ?>

I tried with


$this->menu=array(

	array('label'=>CHtml::encode('Listar Imágenes'), 'url'=>array('index')),

	array('label'=>'Create Image', 'url'=>array('create')),

	array('label'=>'Update Image', 'url'=>array('update', 'id'=>$model->id)),

	array('label'=>'Delete Image', 'url'=>'#', 'linkOptions'=>array('submit'=>array('delete','id'=>$model->id),'confirm'=>'Are you sure you want to delete this item?')),

	array('label'=>'Manage Image', 'url'=>array('admin')),

);

?>

with the same result. I will try the CMenu widget and post the results.

10

I can not reproduce your issue with the code you supplied. Can you try again with a clean fresh webapp where you did not change the default configuration? I’ve tried to insert your menu items into views/layout/main.php for a test - everything works fine.

11

Did you really save the view file as UTF-8 (without BOM)?

Does the error disappear if you comment the first item?





$this->menu=array(

        //array('label'=>CHtml::encode('Listar Imágenes'), 'url'=>array('index')),

        array('label'=>'Create Image', 'url'=>array('create')),

        array('label'=>'Update Image', 'url'=>array('update', 'id'=>$model->id)),

        array('label'=>'Delete Image', 'url'=>'#', 'linkOptions'=>array('submit'=>array('delete','id'=>$model->id),'confirm'=>'Are you sure you want to delete this item?')),

        array('label'=>'Manage Image', 'url'=>array('admin')),

);

?>
12

The error disappears if I comment the first label because it’s the only one with special characters. Concerning the UTF-8 configuration, my db is in UTF-8 (no problem with special characters if the data comes from the db), and my main.php config file is also set in UTF-8.


return array(

        'language'=>'es', // Este es el lenguaje en el que querés que muestre las cosas


        //'sourceLanguage'=>'es_es', //  este es el lenguaje por default de los archivos

	//'homeUrl'=>'/ausevyii/project',

	'basePath'=>dirname(__FILE__).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'..',

	'name'=>'Activos Urbanos Sevilla',

	'theme'=>'citylights',

        'charset'=>'UTF-8',

This is the main layout head section




<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en">

    <head>


        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />

        <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />

        <title><?php echo CHtml::encode(Yii::app()->name); ?></title>


        <link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo Yii::app()->theme->baseUrl; ?>/css/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />

        <link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo Yii::app()->theme->baseUrl; ?>/css/form.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />

        <!--[if IE 6]><link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo Yii::app()->theme->baseUrl; ?>/css/style.ie6.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /><![endif]-->

        <!--[if IE 7]><link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo Yii::app()->theme->baseUrl; ?>/css/style.ie7.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /><![endif]-->


        <script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo Yii::app()->theme->baseUrl; ?>/css/script.js"></script>

    </head>

Tried changing the "en-US" and the "en" values to "es-ES" and "es" in the head section, it reproduces the same error.

13

You didn’t answer to my first question.

Your db and your charset of the output is UTF-8.

But is your view php-file saved on the disk as UTF-8?

I don’t know which editor you use, but maybe it’s configurable at the bottom (phpstorm) or in notepad++ in the encoding menu - see screenshots.

14

Oh I didn’t know about that, thank you very much. I use Komodo Edit and it was saving all my php files in mac roman, now it is fixed and the views are rendering well. Thank you again, I thought I was going crazy with these special characters.

15

It’s told in the wiki article Setup unicode in 1. PHP script files

16

Yes, the thing is I was using a different editor when I started learning Yii and later changed to Komodo and forgot about changing the configuration, so I assumed it was right, it’s like when you can’t find your keys anywhere and then you realize they are in your pocket. :smiley: