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Answer 1

+2 A:

See utf8_decode:

echo utf8_decode($str);

karim79 2009-11-16 17:27:19

... provided he is using ISO-8859-1 as his output format (which i most probably is).

Pekka 2009-11-16 17:29:46

@Pekka Gaiser - this is true, also worth noting that `mb_detect_encoding` can be used to check what the encoding is set to.

karim79 2009-11-16 17:31:27

Not really true, I'm afraid. `mb_detect_encoding` makes a guess, based on heuristics. It has all sorts of pitfalls. Specifically, it's useless for distinguishing between various `iso-8859-X` encodings.

troelskn 2009-11-16 18:06:59

Seems like he is using windows-1252, not iso-8859-1.

troelskn 2009-11-16 18:16:34

i used utf8_decode($str) function,but it is replacing those characters with question mark(?)..

someone 2009-11-17 05:47:04

@someone: Yes, that's because `utf8_decode` translates from utf8->iso-8859-1 and you are using windows-1252, not iso-8859-1. See my answer.

troelskn 2009-11-17 11:18:59

Answer 2

+1 A:

Those are not "unicode characters" - Those are artefacts of messed-up character encoding. In this case, the most likely explanation is that you are interpreting utf-8 data as windows-1252. This may happen if you take a utf-8 encoded string and display it in a shell on windows. Or if you display it on a web page, sending a Content-Type header with charset=windows-1252. Just educated guesses of course, there are numerous ways this could happen.

The solution to your problem is to treat the data as utf-8.

troelskn 2009-11-16 18:13:58

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