Saving Replacement Character

[Err]

I'm dealing with a replacement character inside a database... and it's fine if it stays there but I'm trying to edit it. My form displays the character as a diamond shape with a question mark in it (�). So I submit the form, I compare the data between the one on the form to the on in the data to see if it has changed. The problem here is that when I submit the form it turns the replacement character into & #65533; which is the html entity equivalent so when this happens it fails the comparison and the code thinks the string has changed-- which it has, but not really. I've tried to employ different methods of either turning the replacement character into the html entity equivalent from the database when it's being compared --it starts to turn another seemingly normal characters into other replacement character html entities equivalent (through no fault of my own)-- and turning the html entities into the replacement character --which doesn't work-- but they both fail. My questions is: How can I keep the character from turning into an html entity?

[Don E]

Have you tried the htmlspecialchars_decode() and/or html_entity_decode() functions? http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars-decode.phphttp://www.php.net/manual/en/function.html-entity-decode.php

[Err]

Yes, both. In fact, I originally started with those two but I've been at this for so long that I forgot to mention it.

[birbal]

first make sure database table/column collation ,mysql connection collation is utf-8, your page content type encoding ,your page's encoding is in utf-8.

[Err]

Yes. I've made sure of that.