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Converting to UTF8

The ToUTF8 class provides methods to convert various text formats to UTF-8 encoding.

fromHtmlEntities​

Convert HTML entities (both named and numeric) to UTF-8 characters.

$str = \ByJG\Convert\ToUTF8::fromHtmlEntities('João');
echo $str; // João

// Works with numeric entities too
$str = \ByJG\Convert\ToUTF8::fromHtmlEntities('João');
echo $str; // João

Supported Entities​

This method supports:

  • All ISO-8859-1 HTML entities (á, ñ, etc.)
  • Numeric HTML entities (á, ñ, etc.)
  • Greek alphabet entities (α, β, etc.)
  • Mathematical symbols (∑, ∞, ∇, etc.)
  • Special characters (€, ™, ©, etc.)
  • Arrow symbols (←, →, etc.)

fromCombiningChar​

Convert combining character sequences to proper UTF-8 characters. Combining characters are Unicode characters that modify the preceding character (like adding an accent).

$combining = 'A' . chr(204) . chr(128); // A + combining grave accent
$str = \ByJG\Convert\ToUTF8::fromCombiningChar($combining);
echo $str; // À

Use Cases​

This is particularly useful when dealing with:

  • Text from systems that use combining diacritics
  • Normalized Unicode forms (NFD) that need to be converted to composed forms (NFC)
  • Legacy systems that separate base characters from their accents

fromEmoji​

Convert ASCII emoticons to their corresponding Unicode emoji characters.

// Basic emoticons
$str = \ByJG\Convert\ToUTF8::fromEmoji('Hello :) How are you? :D');
echo $str; // Hello 😊 How are you? 😃

// Hearts
$str = \ByJG\Convert\ToUTF8::fromEmoji('I love you <3 but my heart is </3');
echo $str; // I love you ❤️ but my heart is 💔

// Various expressions
$str = \ByJG\Convert\ToUTF8::fromEmoji('XD :P ;) :( O:) >:(');
echo $str; // 😆 😛 😉 ☹️ 😇 😠

Supported Emoticons​

Basic Smileys​

  • :) :-) → 😊 (Smiley face)
  • :D :-D → 😃 (Big grin)
  • :( :-( → ☹️ (Sad face)
  • ;) ;-) → 😉 (Winking face)
  • :P :-P :p → 😛 (Tongue out)

Expressions​

  • XD → 😆 (Laughing)
  • :O :-O :o → 😮 (Surprised)
  • >:( >:-( → 😠 (Angry)
  • :* :-* → 😘 (Kissing)
  • :'( :'-( → 😢 (Crying)
  • :') :'-) → 😂 (Tears of joy)

Special Faces​

  • O:) O:-) → 😇 (Angel)
  • >:) >:-) → 😈 (Evil grin)
  • B) B-) → 😎 (Cool with sunglasses)
  • :3 =^.^= → 😺 (Cat face)
  • :S :-S → 😕 (Confused)
  • :$ :-$ → 😳 (Blushing)
  • :@ :-@ → 😠 (Angry)
  • :| :-| → 😐 (Straight face)
  • :X :-X :x → 🤐 (Sealed lips)

Eastern Style​

  • -_- → 😑 (Expressionless)
  • ^_^ → 😊 (Happy)
  • >_< → 😣 (Frustrated)
  • ._. → 😐 (Neutral)

Hearts​

  • <3 → ❤️ (Heart)
  • </3 → 💔 (Broken heart)

Actions​

  • \o/ → 🙌 (Hands up/celebration)
  • o/ \o → 👋 (Waving hand)

Notes​

  • Longer emoticons (like :-D) are matched before shorter ones (like :D)
  • Emoticons are case-sensitive for some variants (e.g., XD vs xd)
  • The conversion is a simple string replacement, so emoticons within words may also be converted