str_replace in php not working with special characters

Question

I am trying the following code to replace all spanish special characters to something that can be converted to an URL.

<?php
                $Handle = "blusa-tipo-túnica-asimétrica-sin-mangas";
                $Handle = str_replace( 'à', 'a', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'á', 'a', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'â', 'a', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ã', 'a', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ä', 'a', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'å', 'a', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'è', 'e', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'é', 'e', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ê', 'e', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ë', 'e', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ì', 'i', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'í', 'i', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'î', 'i', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ï', 'i', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ð', 'o', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ñ', 'n', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ò', 'o', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ó', 'o', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ô', 'o', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'õ', 'o', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ù', 'u', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ú', 'u', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'û', 'u', $Handle );
                $Handle = str_replace( 'ü', 'u', $Handle );;
                
                echo $Handle;
?>

But the above prints exactly the same input I give "blusa-tipo-túnica-asimétrica-sin-mangas". Why? What am I doing wrong?

1. The charset you've written your matches in is probably different than what the data is using. 2. No, you can't detect the charset. 3. Yes I know there are functions that purport to do that. They guess. 4. You need to explicitly know the charset. 5. Don't use anything like this code, use Transliterator. — Sammitch
– Sammitch, Commented Feb 24, 2022 at 0:19
Those "spanish special characters" are just letters and also exist outside Spanish. Do you even keep in mind the actually interesting characters, like ¿ and ¡? — AmigoJack
– AmigoJack, Commented Feb 24, 2022 at 12:47

E-telier · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-24 13:48:01Z

1

My little trick to replace all special characters is to convert the string to HTML, then replace the special characters by their base letters :

function strip_accents($str)
    {
        $str = htmlentities($str, ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8');
        
        $str = preg_replace('#\&([A-za-z])(?:acute|cedil|circ|grave|ring|tilde|uml)\;#', '\1', $str);
        $str = preg_replace('#\&([A-za-z]{2})(?:lig)\;#', '\1', $str);
        $str = preg_replace('#\&[^;]+\;#', '', $str);
        
        return $str;
    }

Note: make sure your source file is UTF-8 encoded

answered Feb 24, 2022 at 13:48

E-telier

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2 Comments

AmigoJack Over a year ago

This will kill ð instead of turning it into o as per OP's code (unbound to how little sense this makes for its meaning or in the context of Spanish).

E-telier Over a year ago

@AmigoJack Sure, but in that case OP could add a str_replace() turning ð into o

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