PHP PDO: charset, set names?

Question

I had this previously in my normal mysql_* connection:

mysql_set_charset(\"utf8\",$link);
mysql_query(\"SET NAMES \'UTF8\'\");

Do I need it

Answer 1

This is probably the most elegant way to do it.
Right in the PDO constructor call, but avoiding the buggy charset option (as mentioned above):

$connect = new PDO(
  "mysql:host=$host;dbname=$db", 
  $user, 
  $pass, 
  array(
    PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,
    PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => "SET NAMES utf8"
  )
);

Works great for me.