saving 'url_encode' with no modifications
hi, i am using php with mysql, and for security reasons, i save all strings as 'urlencode', wich among other things, converts quotes, double quotes (which are string end chars) and basically all that is not a letter or a number into url encode, or a '%' followed by a number. i expect it to save messages written in spanish, so chars like á, ñ, é and others, are parsed by the url encode. there are some scape functions included in php to make a string 'database safe', which works more or less the same (escape end of string chars and other stuff), but most of my code has urlencodes everywhere (so if your answer is 'use those functions, please dont'). when i store the string, urlencoded into the databse, and then retrieve it, i dont find the same symbols i stored, for example, if i store an 'ñ', what i get after i save it and then read it, is a sequence of werid chars, for example, in 'españa', what i get is españa. for a previos project i made a replace function, but i find it like cutting corners, so how do i store my &## and retrieve the same %## i save? somebody told me i should check the definition of the table, what definition should i use? (i use the default engines when declaring tables, since i do not specify a particular engine)
tnx