[tlug] Doing kanji and stuff in email headers

[Brian Chandler <brian@example.com>]

I'm looking for help with email (calling the mail() function in php): 
meta-help would help too, along the lines of "This is where to ask that 
question..."


I'm trying to clean up the confirmation emails I send to customers from 
my shop software, so that Chinese names (etc etc) get through properly. 
For the longest time I've just been sending utf8 text, which *my* mail 
reader shows correctly, but of course being against the rules (AIUI) 
some customers come back concerned that their addresses have been mangled.

So I added a header: Content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

That should take care of the body, but then I get names in the to: 
header, which I need to escape. I found a recipe:

Name in to header: '=?UTF-8?B?'.base64_encode($name).'?='

But I'm concerned that if I do this where it isn't necessary, some "spam 
filter" will not like it; so I wonder

o What's the neatest way to decide if it's necessary? OR
o Can I after all just use UTF-8 because it's ok nowadays?

Grateful for any suggestions, hints, and things.
Brian Chandler