utf8_decode
(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
Converts a string from UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1, replacing invalid or unrepresentable characters
Function-8-2-0
Description
This function converts the string string from the UTF-8 encoding to ISO-8859-1. Bytes in the string which are not valid UTF-8, and UTF-8 characters which do not exist in ISO-8859-1 (that is, code points above U+00FF) are replaced with ?.
Many web pages marked as using the ISO-8859-1 character encoding actually use the similar Windows-1252 encoding, and web browsers will interpret ISO-8859-1 web pages as Windows-1252. Windows-1252 features additional printable characters, such as the Euro sign (€) and curly quotes (“ ”), instead of certain ISO-8859-1 control characters. This function will not convert such Windows-1252 characters correctly. Use a different function if Windows-1252 conversion is required.
Parameters
stringA UTF-8 encoded string.
Return Values
Returns the ISO-8859-1 translation of string.
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 8.2.0 | This function has been deprecated. |
| 7.2.0 | This function has been moved from the XML extension to the core of PHP. In previous versions, it was only available if the XML extension was installed. |
Examples
Basic examples
<?php
// Convert the string 'Zoë' from UTF-8 to ISO 8859-1
$utf8_string = "\x5A\x6F\xC3\xAB";
$iso8859_1_string = utf8_decode($utf8_string);
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";
// Invalid UTF-8 sequences are replaced with '?'
$invalid_utf8_string = "\xC3";
$iso8859_1_string = utf8_decode($invalid_utf8_string);
var_dump($iso8859_1_string);
// Characters which don't exist in ISO 8859-1, such as
// '€' (Euro Sign) are also replaced with '?'
$utf8_string = "\xE2\x82\xAC";
$iso8859_1_string = utf8_decode($utf8_string);
var_dump($iso8859_1_string);
?>The above example will output:
5a6feb
string(1) "?"
string(1) "?"Notes
This function is deprecated as of PHP 8.2.0, and will be removed in a future version. Existing uses should be checked and replaced with appropriate alternatives.
Similar functionality can be achieved with mb_convert_encoding(), which supports ISO-8859-1 and many other character encodings.
<?php
$utf8_string = "\xC3\xAB"; // 'ë' (e with diaeresis) in UTF-8
$iso8859_1_string = mb_convert_encoding($utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8');
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";
$utf8_string = "\xCE\xBB"; // 'λ' (Greek lower-case lambda) in UTF-8
$iso8859_7_string = mb_convert_encoding($utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-7', 'UTF-8');
echo bin2hex($iso8859_7_string), "\n";
$utf8_string = "\xE2\x82\xAC"; // '€' (Euro sign) in UTF-8 (not present in ISO-8859-1)
$windows_1252_string = mb_convert_encoding($utf8_string, 'Windows-1252', 'UTF-8');
echo bin2hex($windows_1252_string), "\n";
?>The above example will output:
eb
eb
80Other options which may be available depending on the extensions installed are UConverter::transcode and iconv().
The following all give the same result:
<?php
$utf8_string = "\x5A\x6F\xC3\xAB"; // 'Zoë' in UTF-8
$iso8859_1_string = utf8_decode($utf8_string);
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";
$iso8859_1_string = mb_convert_encoding($utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8');
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";
$iso8859_1_string = iconv('UTF-8', 'ISO-8859-1', $utf8_string);
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";
$iso8859_1_string = UConverter::transcode($utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-1', 'UTF8');
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";
?>The above example will output:
5a6feb
5a6feb
5a6feb
5a6febSpecifying '?' as the 'to_subst' option to UConverter::transcode gives the same result as utf8_decode() for strings which are invalid or which can not be represented in ISO 8859-1.
<?php
$utf8_string = "\xE2\x82\xAC"; // € (Euro Sign) does not exist in ISO 8859-1
$iso8859_1_string = UConverter::transcode(
$utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8', ['to_subst' => '?']
);
var_dump($iso8859_1_string);
?>The above example will output:
string(1) "?"See Also
utf8_encode()mb_convert_encoding()UConverter::transcodeiconv()