Replace character ā with it's html entity ā

Question

I'm having a really hard time trying to replace a certain character with it's entity equivalent. I tried to str_replace the character "ā" but it just wont work! I can't see why. The code I use:

$content = str_replace('ā', '&#257;',$content);

If anyone has some tips or maybe even an explanation of why it doesn't work, please let me know!

UPDATE:

While above code doesn't replace the character with the entity (don't understand why) that is not the main problem. The character shows up fine, but when I read this page using file_get_contents and after that insert the read HTML into a database the character gets mangled. It's already mangled in the database in which it was inserted.

All headers as suggested below are UTF-8, database tables have UTF-8 encoding, files are UTF-8...

As a quick fix I wanted to convert the char to it's entity before insert into that DB.

Try this: http://snipress.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/str_replace-equivalent-for-multi-byte-string-like-utf-8/ — Sam Dufel, May 08 '12 at 14:50
have a look http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3959626/replace-unicode-character — CyprUS, May 08 '12 at 14:52
Is it okay to replace all of the funky characters or do you just want one? — David Nguyen, May 08 '12 at 14:54
Is your source file encoded in UTF-8 as well? Did you send a php header signifying UTF-8 and set a meta element in the html? — Jeff Lambert, May 08 '12 at 14:58
Are you _sure_ everything is utf-8? If it's coming from a database you need to ensure the connector is in utf-8 as well. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8473965/there-are-symbols-like-and-so-on-in-database-what-to-do/8474356#8474356 — CD001, May 08 '12 at 15:15

Michael Sazonov · Answer 1 · 2012-05-10T05:06:31.727

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Try this: header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8'); This will make your page display all the legal characters by UTF8, place this code on your page right after <?php

UPDATE: Try at every connection to DB:

    $connect = YOUR_MYSQL_CONNECTION();

    mysql_query( "SET NAMES 'utf8';" , $connect );

    mysql_query( "SET CHARACTER SET 'utf8';" , $connect );

edited May 10 '12 at 05:06

answered May 08 '12 at 14:53

Michael Sazonov

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All is UTF-8 but still troubles. – tvgemert May 08 '12 at 14:55
You said the tables are in the right encoding? What about the whole DB? Also, see my update – Michael Sazonov May 10 '12 at 05:04
Yes it is... But let's close this issue then. I assume it's this specific character that's buggin out. Thanks all for your help. – tvgemert May 10 '12 at 11:03

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 11 '12 at 07:02

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Is the larger string which contains ā easily accessible? If so, the htmlentities function should do the job. It should convert all characters with an HTML equivalent to that equivalent. However, it'll also convert the likes of < into <.

answered May 11 '12 at 07:02

chooban

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Well... Thanks, but I'm quite well aware of what htmlentities does, that's not the point. I'm totally puzzled why it doesn't work in this specific situation. – tvgemert May 14 '12 at 07:42
Sorry, got myself mixed up. There are a few other questions on SO that suggest that str_replace isn't always multibyte happy. [This question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1451144/php-multi-byte-str-replace) seems to be describing something similar. When you say the character is mangled in the database what do you mean? – chooban May 17 '12 at 06:59

Replace character ā with it's html entity ā

2 Answers2