PhpStorm
 
2022.2
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  1. Development environment
  2. Configuring the IDE
  3. Encoding

Encoding

Last modified: 28 November 2022

To display and edit files correctly, PhpStorm needs to know which encoding to use. In general, source code files are mostly in UTF-8. This is the recommended encoding unless you have some other requirements.

To determine the encoding of a file, PhpStorm uses the following steps:

  • If the byte order mark (BOM) is present, PhpStorm will use the corresponding Unicode encoding regardless of all other settings. For more information, see Byte order mark.

  • If the file declares the encoding explicitly, PhpStorm will use the specified encoding. For example, this can apply to XML or HTML files. The explicit declaration also overrides all other settings, but you can change it in the editor.

  • If there is no BOM and no explicit encoding declaration in the file, PhpStorm will use the encoding configured for the file or directory in the file encoding settings. If encoding is not configured for the file or directory, PhpStorm will use the encoding of the parent directory. If the parent directory encoding is also not configured, PhpStorm will fall back to the Project Encoding, and if there is no project, to Global Encoding.

Change the encoding used to view a file

If PhpStorm displays characters in a file incorrectly, it probably couldn't detect the file encoding. In this case, you need to specify the correct encoding to use for viewing and editing this file.

  • With the file open in the editor, either select File | File Properties | File Encoding from the main menu or click the File Encoding widget on the status bar, and select the correct encoding of the file.

    Status bar encoding

    tip

    The list of encodings is rather large. You can use speed search to quickly find the correct encoding: start typing when the popup is open.

    Encodings marked with The triangle warning icon or The round error icon might change the file contents. In this case, PhpStorm opens a dialog where you can choose what to do with the file:

    • Reload: load the file in the editor from disk and apply encoding changes to the editor only. You will see the content changes related to the chosen encoding, but the actual file will not change.

    • Convert: overwrite the file with the chosen encoding.

This will add an association for the file to the file encoding settings. PhpStorm will use the specified encoding to view and edit this file.

Configure default encoding for properties files

PhpStorm applies system default encoding to .properties files. To use other encodings, feed them as escape sequences and Unicode. Alternatively, define the default encoding for .properties files on the project level and use different API that can read .properties files in the encoding you have defined.

  1. In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), select Editor | File Encodings.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • To have the special mode turned on when symbols are stored in a properties file as escape sequences but displayed as normal letters, check the option Transparent native-to-ascii conversion. This option is helpful when the properties files are encoded in ISO 8859-1. It is recommended to use this approach, if you don't have any special reasons to change encoding.

    • In the Default encoding for properties files list, select the encoding that will be used for all properties files in project.

Configure file encoding settings

  • Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Editor | File Encoding.

PhpStorm uses these settings to view and edit files for which it was unable to detect the encoding and uses the specified encodings for new files. For more information, see File Encodings.

Select console output encoding

By default, PhpStorm uses the system encoding to view console output.

  1. In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), select Editor | General | Console.

  2. Select the default encoding from the Default Encoding list.

  3. Click OK to apply the changes.

For more information about console output settings, see Console.

See also

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