PHP - comparing strings with special character -

i trying compare 2 strings me equal, not getting result of equal.

here 2 equality checks have run:

if (strcasecmp($h3tag, "sector (gics®)") == 0) {     echo "found sector!<br />"; }  if ($h3tag == "sector (gics®)") {     echo "found sector!<br />"; } 

and here print_r $h3tag requested: sector (gics®)

i pretty sure has registered trademark symbol because have done starts function , got symbol before failed. tried running through htmlspecialchars , comparing sector (gics®) no avail. ideas how compare strings symbol?

try adding line header('content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8'); @ top.

also u when u echo value of $h3tag ?