Convert accented characters to their plain ascii equivalents

Question

I have to convert french characters into english on my php. I've used the following code:

iconv("utf-8", "ascii//TRANSLIT", $string);

But the result for ËËË was "E"E"E.

I don't need that double quote and other extra characters - I want to show an output like EEE. Is there any other method to convert french to english? Can you help me to do this?

Solution 1

The PHP Manual iconv Intro has a warning:

Note that the iconv function on some systems may not work as you expect. In such case, it'd be a good idea to install the GNU libiconv library. It will most likely end up with more consistent results.

But if accented characters are the only issue then you could use a dirty strtr (partially from strtr comments):

$string = 'Ë À Ì Â Í Ã Î Ä Ï Ç Ò È Ó É Ô Ê Õ Ö ê Ù ë Ú î Û ï Ü ô Ý õ â û ã ÿ ç';

$normalizeChars = array(
    'Š'=>'S', 'š'=>'s', 'Ð'=>'Dj','Ž'=>'Z', 'ž'=>'z', 'À'=>'A', 'Á'=>'A', 'Â'=>'A', 'Ã'=>'A', 'Ä'=>'A',
    'Å'=>'A', 'Æ'=>'A', 'Ç'=>'C', 'È'=>'E', 'É'=>'E', 'Ê'=>'E', 'Ë'=>'E', 'Ì'=>'I', 'Í'=>'I', 'Î'=>'I',
    'Ï'=>'I', 'Ñ'=>'N', 'Ń'=>'N', 'Ò'=>'O', 'Ó'=>'O', 'Ô'=>'O', 'Õ'=>'O', 'Ö'=>'O', 'Ø'=>'O', 'Ù'=>'U', 'Ú'=>'U',
    'Û'=>'U', 'Ü'=>'U', 'Ý'=>'Y', 'Þ'=>'B', 'ß'=>'Ss','à'=>'a', 'á'=>'a', 'â'=>'a', 'ã'=>'a', 'ä'=>'a',
    'å'=>'a', 'æ'=>'a', 'ç'=>'c', 'è'=>'e', 'é'=>'e', 'ê'=>'e', 'ë'=>'e', 'ì'=>'i', 'í'=>'i', 'î'=>'i',
    'ï'=>'i', 'ð'=>'o', 'ñ'=>'n', 'ń'=>'n', 'ò'=>'o', 'ó'=>'o', 'ô'=>'o', 'õ'=>'o', 'ö'=>'o', 'ø'=>'o', 'ù'=>'u',
    'ú'=>'u', 'û'=>'u', 'ü'=>'u', 'ý'=>'y', 'ý'=>'y', 'þ'=>'b', 'ÿ'=>'y', 'ƒ'=>'f',
    'ă'=>'a', 'î'=>'i', 'â'=>'a', 'ș'=>'s', 'ț'=>'t', 'Ă'=>'A', 'Î'=>'I', 'Â'=>'A', 'Ș'=>'S', 'Ț'=>'T',
);

//Output: E A I A I A I A I C O E O E O E O O e U e U i U i U o Y o a u a y c
echo strtr($string, $normalizeChars);

Solution 2

This worked for me for French characters.

$str = utf8_encode($str);
$str = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $str);

Solution 3

An alternative:

function replaceAccents($str) {

  $search = explode(",","ç,æ,œ,á,é,í,ó,ú,à,è,ì,ò,ù,ä,ë,ï,ö,ü,ÿ,â,ê,î,ô,û,å,ø,Ø,Å,Á,À,Â,Ä,È,É,Ê,Ë,Í,Î,Ï,Ì,Ò,Ó,Ô,Ö,Ú,Ù,Û,Ü,Ÿ,Ç,Æ,Œ");

  $replace = explode(",","c,ae,oe,a,e,i,o,u,a,e,i,o,u,a,e,i,o,u,y,a,e,i,o,u,a,o,O,A,A,A,A,A,E,E,E,E,I,I,I,I,O,O,O,O,U,U,U,U,Y,C,AE,OE");

  return str_replace($search, $replace, $str);
}


$str = "À é ü ä ç";
$str = replaceAccents($str);
echo "$str \n"; 
//output "A e u a c" 

Solution 4

Here is the wordpress way:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/remove_accents

You can copy the remove_accents() function and implement to your system.

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.9.1/src/wp-includes/formatting.php#L682

Solution 5

Here's what helped me. It's important to set locale to en_US and not your real locale.

$curLocale = setlocale(LC_ALL, 0); //gets current locale
setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_US.utf8"); //without this iconv removes accented letters. If you use another locale it will also fail

$text = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $text);

setlocale(LC_ALL, $curLocale); //set locale to what it was before   

View more solutions

Comments

[ram]

If i got my string from html form(ex:ÉÉÉabcd) and used, $this->_data = JRequest::get('post'); $string=$this->_data['quiz_optionA']; Then used that convertion method the result was A�A�A�abcd..The french characters didnt coverted as a string.Output should be EEEabcd.U have any idea to do this ?

[ram]

ÉÉÉabcd.This is my string,which comes from form, using post method.

[Ingmar Boddington]

After this line? $string=$this->_data['quiz_optionA']; If you just try and output the string as is, does it break the accented characters?

[ZeWaren]

Actually the result is not the same on Windows and on Linux.

[Matt Fletcher]

Replaces Irish characters, such as Í with ? when I tried it... is there a difference between those and French chars?

[Matt Fletcher]

Actually, the first line converted the character to Ã and then the second line converted the Ã to ?? :/

[Matt Fletcher]

It's dirty, but it works... at least for me when converting Irish names!

[joshweir]

missing 'ń' => 'n'

[Josh Bernfeld]

This fixed the question marks and quotes for me setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_US.utf8"); $string = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT//IGNORE', $string);

[rap-2-h]

"You can copy the remove_accents() function ..." I created a package by roughly copy/paste the wordpress function: github.com/rap2hpoutre/convert-accent-characters Hope it could help!

[ecabuk]

@rap-2-h Wordpress is licensed with GPL, correct me if I am wrong but your package should also have same license.

[Matt Harley]

str_slug also supports a $separator parameter so you can do str_slug($accentedPhrase, ' ') as a shortcut

[Round-Sliced]

you can just open the file from link and rip out their character map when you scroll enough....

[Maciej Krawczyk]

Polish special chars are missing.

[Pryftan]

Note: In German if you don't have access to the umlaut you can add an E: for example Ü becomes UE; ö becomes oe; etc. So the trick is deciding whether or not you can always do that. I don't know if this rule applies to languages other than German though and that's the problem in the first place: not everything translates okay.