PHP, € and EE

I’m getting strange symbols whenever I try and echo the Euro symbol (€) from PHP (in a plugin) it displays as garbage, yet it works fine in EE. Would this have something to do with the default characterset in php.ini, and if so, why doesn’t it effect EE (which I assumed, also uses PHP to render the templates…)

I wrote the plugin myself, and it just uses $r=”€” . $some_variable) and then returns it at the end of the function.

rather, here is a shortened example of what I’m doing:

function for_class() // would be EE tag exp:classname:for_class { $r=$r . ” some stuff to be displayed in the template”; $r=$r . “€” . $this->calculate_something; return $r; }

Note: this is just simplified, and showing a chunk of the actual function I’m using.