Encoding issues … windows-1255 to utf 8?

Question

Encoding convert from windows-1255 to utf-8 was asked before I know, but I'm still getting different results and I can't solve it.

The first issue is "does php iconv() or mb_convert_encoding() support windows-1255????" While testing, it returns several outputs (playing with the //ignore & //translate) but its not working well at all.

I was looking at mb_list_encodings() output and it doesn't include window-1255... playing and testing mb_detect_encoding() with an windows-1255 input (crawled from the net) doesn't return the good charset...

Answer 1

You should be able to just use strtr with an associative array of characters to convert (the data is available from MSDN, and converted into a PHP array below). Note that in this code, reserved byte values are replaced with the U+FFFD replacement character ("\xef\xbf\xbd").

function win1255ToUtf8($str) {
    static $tbl = null;
    if (!$tbl) {
        $tbl = array_combine(range("\x80", "\xff"), array(
            "\xe2\x82\xac", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xe2\x80\x9a", "\xc6\x92",
            "\xe2\x80\x9e", "\xe2\x80\xa6", "\xe2\x80\xa0", "\xe2\x80\xa1",
            "\xcb\x86", "\xe2\x80\xb0", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xe2\x80\xb9",
            "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd",
            "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xe2\x80\x98", "\xe2\x80\x99", "\xe2\x80\x9c",
            "\xe2\x80\x9d", "\xe2\x80\xa2", "\xe2\x80\x93", "\xe2\x80\x94",
            "\xcb\x9c", "\xe2\x84\xa2", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xe2\x80\xba",
            "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd",
            "\xc2\xa0", "\xc2\xa1", "\xc2\xa2", "\xc2\xa3", "\xe2\x82\xaa",
            "\xc2\xa5", "\xc2\xa6", "\xc2\xa7", "\xc2\xa8", "\xc2\xa9",
            "\xc3\x97", "\xc2\xab", "\xc2\xac", "\xc2\xad", "\xc2\xae",
            "\xc2\xaf", "\xc2\xb0", "\xc2\xb1", "\xc2\xb2", "\xc2\xb3",
            "\xc2\xb4", "\xc2\xb5", "\xc2\xb6", "\xc2\xb7", "\xc2\xb8",
            "\xc2\xb9", "\xc3\xb7", "\xc2\xbb", "\xc2\xbc", "\xc2\xbd",
            "\xc2\xbe", "\xc2\xbf", "\xd6\xb0", "\xd6\xb1", "\xd6\xb2",
            "\xd6\xb3", "\xd6\xb4", "\xd6\xb5", "\xd6\xb6", "\xd6\xb7",
            "\xd6\xb8", "\xd6\xb9", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xd6\xbb", "\xd6\xbc",
            "\xd6\xbd", "\xd6\xbe", "\xd6\xbf", "\xd7\x80", "\xd7\x81",
            "\xd7\x82", "\xd7\x83", "\xd7\xb0", "\xd7\xb1", "\xd7\xb2",
            "\xd7\xb3", "\xd7\xb4", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd",
            "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd",
            "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xd7\x90", "\xd7\x91", "\xd7\x92", "\xd7\x93",
            "\xd7\x94", "\xd7\x95", "\xd7\x96", "\xd7\x97", "\xd7\x98",
            "\xd7\x99", "\xd7\x9a", "\xd7\x9b", "\xd7\x9c", "\xd7\x9d",
            "\xd7\x9e", "\xd7\x9f", "\xd7\xa0", "\xd7\xa1", "\xd7\xa2",
            "\xd7\xa3", "\xd7\xa4", "\xd7\xa5", "\xd7\xa6", "\xd7\xa7",
            "\xd7\xa8", "\xd7\xa9", "\xd7\xaa", "\xef\xbf\xbd", "\xef\xbf\xbd",
            "\xe2\x80\x8e", "\xe2\x80\x8f", "\xef\xbf\xbd",
        ));
    }
    return strtr($str, $tbl);
}

I generated the above code with this PHP script:

function win1255ToUtf8($str) {
    static $tbl = null;
    if (!$tbl) {
        $tbl = array_combine(range("\x80", "\xff"), array(
            <?php

        function encodeString($str) {
            return '"' . preg_replace('/../', '\x$0', bin2hex($str)) . '"';
        }

        function codepointToUtf8($n) {
            return mb_convert_encoding(pack('V', $n), 'UTF-8', 'UTF-32LE');
        }

        $text = strip_tags( file_get_contents( 'http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/cc305148.aspx') );
        preg_match_all('/([0-9A-F]{2}) = U\+([0-9A-F]{4})/', $text, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);

        $table = array_fill(0, 128, "\xef\xbf\xbd");
        foreach ($matches as $match) {
            $input = hexdec($match[1]) - 128;
            if ($input >= 0) {
                $table[$input] = codepointToUtf8(hexdec($match[2]));
            }
        }

        $buf = '';
        foreach ($table as $from => $to) {
            $buf .= encodeString($to) . ', ';
        }
        echo wordwrap(substr($buf, 0, -1), 68, "\n            "), "\n";

?>
        ));
    }
    return strtr($str, $tbl);
}

Answer 2

function cp1251_to_utf8 ($txt)  {
    $in_arr = array (
        chr(208), chr(192), chr(193), chr(194),
        chr(195), chr(196), chr(197), chr(168),
        chr(198), chr(199), chr(200), chr(201),
        chr(202), chr(203), chr(204), chr(205),
        chr(206), chr(207), chr(209), chr(210),
        chr(211), chr(212), chr(213), chr(214),
        chr(215), chr(216), chr(217), chr(218),
        chr(219), chr(220), chr(221), chr(222),
        chr(223), chr(224), chr(225), chr(226),
        chr(227), chr(228), chr(229), chr(184),
        chr(230), chr(231), chr(232), chr(233),
        chr(234), chr(235), chr(236), chr(237),
        chr(238), chr(239), chr(240), chr(241),
        chr(242), chr(243), chr(244), chr(245),
        chr(246), chr(247), chr(248), chr(249),
        chr(250), chr(251), chr(252), chr(253),
        chr(254), chr(255), chr(170), chr(186), chr(434), chr(435), chr(431), chr(447)
    );   

    $out_arr = array (
        chr(208).chr(160), chr(208).chr(144), chr(208).chr(145),
        chr(208).chr(146), chr(208).chr(147), chr(208).chr(148),
        chr(208).chr(149), chr(208).chr(129), chr(208).chr(150),
        chr(208).chr(151), chr(208).chr(152), chr(208).chr(153),
        chr(208).chr(154), chr(208).chr(155), chr(208).chr(156),
        chr(208).chr(157), chr(208).chr(158), chr(208).chr(159),
        chr(208).chr(161), chr(208).chr(162), chr(208).chr(163),
        chr(208).chr(164), chr(208).chr(165), chr(208).chr(166),
        chr(208).chr(167), chr(208).chr(168), chr(208).chr(169),
        chr(208).chr(170), chr(208).chr(171), chr(208).chr(172),
        chr(208).chr(173), chr(208).chr(174), chr(208).chr(175),
        chr(208).chr(176), chr(208).chr(177), chr(208).chr(178),
        chr(208).chr(179), chr(208).chr(180), chr(208).chr(181),
        chr(209).chr(145), chr(208).chr(182), chr(208).chr(183),
        chr(208).chr(184), chr(208).chr(185), chr(208).chr(186),
        chr(208).chr(187), chr(208).chr(188), chr(208).chr(189),
        chr(208).chr(190), chr(208).chr(191), chr(209).chr(128),
        chr(209).chr(129), chr(209).chr(130), chr(209).chr(131),
        chr(209).chr(132), chr(209).chr(133), chr(209).chr(134),
        chr(209).chr(135), chr(209).chr(136), chr(209).chr(137),
        chr(209).chr(138), chr(209).chr(139), chr(209).chr(140),
        chr(209).chr(141), chr(209).chr(142), chr(209).chr(143),
        chr(209).chr(148), chr(209).chr(404), chr(209).chr(150),
        chr(209).chr(406), chr(209).chr(151), chr(209).chr(407)
    );   

    //$txt = str_replace($in_arr,$out_arr,$txt);
    $txtNew='';
    for($C=0;$C<StrLen($txt);$C++){
    If(In_Array($txt[$C],$in_arr)){
    $txtNew.=$out_arr[Array_Search($txt[$C],$in_arr)];
    }Else{
    $txtNew.=Utf8_Encode($txt[$C]);
    }


    }
    //return $txt;
    return $txtNew;
 }

taken from http://forums.adelavida.com/?Idx=php&Status=1291168368

Answer 3

I found that the problem is not in the convertion function like iconv, it's in the database connection. the script open connection with latin1 charset by default then when it writes in the table with utf8 strings data enter bad. You must be sure your connection is UTF8 like your data.

With mysql you can see it with

print mysqli_character_set_name($link)."\n";

and if it's not UTF8 then set the connection charset

mysqli_set_charset($link, "utf8");

Then everything will be ok with iconv('ISO-8859-8','UTF-8//IGNORE',hebrev($value)); for visual hebrew to UTF8 or any convertion function

Answer 4

Found this and it worked for me

$content = iconv("CP1255", "UTF-8", $content);

Source: Expert Exchange