I am using php activerecord, and in two different sections of an application I get a photo asset from a database like so:
$p = Photo::find(12891);
//I insert its caption to a log file for debugging purposes
file_put_contents('log.txt',$p->caption);
In one log file inspected in a text editor, the file will read "over 60 days" (notice two spaces in between 60 and days)
In another log, the file will read "over 60 †days" with that cross character replacing the second space
So something seems to be messing with the character encoding, but I don't know how or why, the PHP configurations are the exactly same where both scripts are running, they are using the exact same function etc
** the log files are not the issue, basically the problem is if you pull the photo object from the database in one script and re-save it,even without modification, the content changes. If you do it in the other, it's fine. the log files were just to illuminate the issue