PHP | iconv() Function

The iconv() function is an inbuilt function in PHP which is used to convert a string to requested character encoding. The iconv() is an international standard conversion application command-line programming interface which converts different character encodings to other encoding types with the help of Unicode conversion.

The converted module string represented by a local character set or by another character set, which is Unicode character set or other supported character set depend on the iconv implementation on the system.

Syntax:

string iconv ( string $input_charset, string $output_charset, string $str )

Parameters: This function accepts three parameters as mentioned above and described below:

• $input_charset : It is mandatory parameter used to take input characters string set.
• $output_charset : If you append the string // TRANSLIT to out_charset transliteration is activated. This means that when a character can’t be represented in the target charset, it can be approximated through one or several similarly looking characters. If you append the string // IGNORE, characters that cannot be represented in the target charset are silently discarded. Otherwise, E_NOTICE is generated and the function will return FALSE.
• $str: The required string which to be converted.

Return Value: If a string is successfully converted into requested character encoding then it returns the converted string, otherwise, return FALSE.Examples:

Input :  $str = "EURO symbol '€'";
Output : Original :EURO symbol '€'
         TRANSLIT :EURO symbol 'EUR'
         IGNORE  :EURO symbol ''
         PLAIN :

Input : $str = "Indian rupees '₹'";
Output : Original :Indian rupees '₹' 
         TRANSLIT :Indian rupees 'INR' 
         IGNORE  :Indian rupees '' 
         PLAIN :

Below programs illustrate the iconv() function in PHP:

Program 1:

php

<?php
// Illustrate the iconv() function in php
// Input string in Indian Rupees Symbol
$str = "Indian Rupees '?' ";

// Print original string
echo 'Original :', ("$str"), PHP_EOL;

// Print translating string
echo 'TRANSLIT :', iconv( "UTF-8",
"ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT", $str), PHP_EOL;

// Print ignoring symbol
echo 'IGNORE :', iconv("UTF-8",
 "ISO-8859-1//IGNORE", $str), PHP_EOL;

// Print plain symbol
echo 'PLAIN :', iconv("UTF-8",
  "ISO-8859-1", $str), PHP_EOL;
?>

Output:

Original :Indian rupees '₹' 
TRANSLIT :Indian rupees 'INR' 
IGNORE  :Indian rupees '' 
PLAIN :

Note: PHP Notice: iconv(): Detected an illegal character in input string in /home/90ff059987ef1d6be3414be3dfb0c043.php on line 19

Program 2:

php

<?php

// Input Euro Symbol
$str = " EURO '€' ";

// Print original string
echo 'Original :', ("$str"), PHP_EOL;

// Print translating string
echo 'TRANSLIT :', iconv( "UTF-8",
  "ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT", $str), PHP_EOL;

// Print ignoring symbol
echo 'IGNORE :', iconv("UTF-8",
   "ISO-8859-1//IGNORE", $str), PHP_EOL;

// Print plain symbol
echo 'Plain :', iconv("UTF-8",
   "ISO-8859-1", $str), PHP_EOL;
?>

Output:

Original : EURO '€'
TRANSLIT : EURO 'EUR'
IGNORE : EURO ''
PLAIN :

Reference: http://php.net/manual/en/function.iconv.php