PHP QR Code will not display UTF-8 characters

Question

I'm generating a QR code vCard using PHP QR Code ( http://phpqrcode.sourceforge.net ). It works, but not with Brazillian Portuguese characters. I can't find how to force UTF-8 to it.

The problem is that iOS will not recognize the characters, check the screenshots below (iOS and Android).

<?php 

include('phpqrcode/qrlib.php'); 

// how to build raw content - QRCode with detailed Business Card (VCard) 
$tempDir = ""; 

// here our data 
$name         = 'João Carlos da Silva'; 
$sortName     = 'da Silva;João Carlos'; 
$phone        = '+55 (89) 2345-6789'; 
$phonePrivate = '+55 (94) 4521-3989'; 
$phoneCell    = '+55 (66) 1234-5678'; 
$orgName      = 'GH Construtora'; 

$email        = 'emaildousuario@dominio.com.br'; 

// if not used - leave blank! 
$addressLabel     = 'Escritório'; 
$addressPobox     = ''; 
$addressExt       = '2º andar'; 
$addressStreet    = 'Av. das Nações, 200'; 
$addressTown      = 'Cidade'; 
$addressRegion    = 'SP';
$addressPostCode  = '18.902-100'; 
$addressCountry   = 'Brasil';

// we building raw data 
$codeContents  = 'BEGIN:VCARD'."\n"; 
$codeContents .= 'VERSION:2.1'."\n"; 
$codeContents .= 'N:'.$sortName."\n"; 
$codeContents .= 'FN:'.$name."\n"; 
$codeContents .= 'ORG:'.$orgName."\n"; 

$codeContents .= 'TEL;WORK;VOICE:'.$phone."\n"; 
$codeContents .= 'TEL;HOME;VOICE:'.$phonePrivate."\n"; 
$codeContents .= 'TEL;TYPE=cell:'.$phoneCell."\n"; 

$codeContents .= 'ADR;TYPE=work;'. 
    'LABEL="'.$addressLabel.'":' 
    .$addressPobox.';' 
    .$addressExt.';' 
    .$addressStreet.';' 
    .$addressTown.';' 
    .$addressPostCode.';' 
    .$addressCountry 
."\n"; 

$codeContents .= 'EMAIL:'.$email."\n"; 

$codeContents .= 'END:VCARD'; 

// generating 
QRcode::png($codeContents, $tempDir.'026.png', QR_ECLEVEL_L, 7); 

// displaying 
echo '<img src="026.png" />';

Answer 1

I don't think the QR-Code is doing something wrong. The Smartphone App is reading, whatever the QR-Code contains.

The Android-App might apply a little more logic afterwards, including some encoding detection, but the QRs content is the same.

So, try to encode your data BEFORE generating the QR-Code:

$codeContents .= 'FN:'.utf8_encode($name)."\n"; 

Answer 2

Solution: QR Code was setting the VCARD version to 2.1. I changed to 3.0 and it works perfectly now with iOS and Android. It was not an encoding issue.

$codeContents .= 'VERSION:3.0'."\n";