Unicode character converting encode

Question

Hello Often i have to import xml files with php, but this files contains some strange characters ex.:\u2022 (corresponding to • real char ) , \u2019 and so on. Is there any function in php to convert this chars to their respective real char (ex. \u2022-> •)?

possible duplicate of [Convert "php unicode" to character](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4261881/convert-php-unicode-to-character) — Pekka, Dec 23 '10 at 16:39
It seems that a found a solution using base64.encode/decode. — albanx, Dec 25 '10 at 10:49
Please refer this link http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-php-unicode/index.html — Pradeep Singh, Dec 23 '10 at 16:39

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 25 '10 at 12:39

I'm assuming that you want to fix errors in poorly built third-party XML you have no control on. It's hard to say without a real sample but \u2019 is the JavaScript syntax to encode Unicode characters. Given that, you can handle your input as a JavaScript string rather than plain text. The json_decode() function can help you:

<?php

$input = '\u2022 (corresponding to • real char ) , \u2019';
$output = json_decode('"' . $input . '"');

Now $output contains • (corresponding to • real char ) , ’.

Unicode character converting encode

1 Answers1