php utf8 text doesnt render correctly

I have a table where i have a TEXT column in utf8_unicode_ci format.

I also have a form where i can put multi language text into this field.

When i fetch each text from this column i want to show only 50 characters in length so i do the following:

$text = $rows["text"];
$text = mb_substr($text, 0, 50);
$text = htmlentities($text, ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8');

this fails to render non english characters and doesnt show anything, if i put mb_substr function below htmlentities it will show up but it will cut the text and show some &letter;&another;

any wa开发者_如何学Goy i can solve this issue?

You can use mb_internal_encoding to change the char encoding to UTF-8, that might solve it.

mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');

If you're on mySQL < 5.0.7:

Enable utf -8 while querying using mysql_query("SET NAMES utf8;");

if you're on a newer mySQL:

mysql_set_charset("utf8");

AND

header('Content-type: text/plain;charset=UTF-8');