title: Handling unicode values in GET parameters with PHP
body: <p>I have the following test script on my server:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?php
  echo "Test is: " . $_GET['test'];
  ?&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I call it with a url like <code>example.com/script.php?test=ɿ</code> (ɿ being a multibyte character), the resulting page looks like this:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Test is: É¿</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>If I try to do anything with the value in $_GET['test'], such as save it a mysql database, I have the same problem. What do I need to to do make PHP handle this value correctly?</p>