mbstring warning

I found a few issues about the mbstring warning and while searching for a solution myself, I made this small article and posted it on the issues and on my website http://www.williamcarrier.com/

Warning

Here's the drawback from not paying attention to the following warning:

Operations on Unicode strings are emulated on a best-effort basis. Install the PHP mbstring extension for improved Unicode support.

Quoted from this comment in "Unicode library" in Status report?:

VeryMisunderstood

the mbstring extension has to do with multibyte characters in internationalization of Drupal. In other words languages. What will using it give you ? The ability to internationalize your site.

WHat risk do you run if you don't install it ? you site wont work with internationalization. In other words as the internet moves forward with multi language sites to reach a larger target audience, you will be left behind as your site will only work 100% properly in English.

Not so good workaround

Here's the drawback from using the settings.ini ini_set('mbstring.http_input','pass');ini_set('mbstring.http_output','pass'); workaround from the first two comments from Drupal 5.X Installation problems 'mbstring' error:

VeryMisunderstood

yes you can live without clean urls, however, you may find other serious limitations on a "free" host. They are typically more restricting then a shred host.

rosgar

If you're using imagecache module.

'Imagecache will not operate properly if Clean URLs is not enabled on your site.'

Solution

Do as the warning stated and demand your host to install the library. Some hosts might feel entitled to their conservative ways but there's some that will be happy to accommodate you and you can use this for leverage if the demand is not met.