charachter encoding in PHP Extension
<p>I'm currently writing a PHP extension in C++ with the Zend API. Basically I make PHP_METHOD{..} wrappers around my native C++ interface methods and using "zend_parse_parameters(..)" to fetch the corresponding input arguments.</p>

<p>This extension contains methods which can take strings as arguments, such as a filename.  </p>

<p>I know from <a href="http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.details" rel="nofollow">http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.details</a> that strings have no encoding in PHP, but still can I expect from the PHP programmer that he will use a function like "utf8_decode(..)" such that the input strings can be read by the extension correctly?  </p>

<p>Or does the PHP Programmer expect that the extension detects the encoding from the php-script and handles strings accordingly?</p>

<p>Every help is highly appreciated! Thanks! </p>