Storing accented characters in mysql db

[eluser]walterblaurock[/eluser]
One method would be to replace the characters with their numeric codes. A list of such codes can be found here: http://www.december.com/html/spec/codes.html

Doing this will ensure compatibility both with your database and with your viewers' browsers.

I am really not sure of the best way to go about doing this, as in the past I have simple written functions to remove accents (e.g. turn é into e).

Perhaps you can do some kind of replace, where it would take é and replace it with &#thecode;. Assuming you only do this one (when inserting the data), the overhead required by such a function (which arguably wouldnt be that much) wouldn't become an issue, unless you are adding wines by the boatload.

I hope someone else has a better answer for you. Best of luck!