PHP replacing special characters like à->a, è->e
There's a much easier way to do this, using iconv - from the user notes, this seems to be what you want to do: characters transliteration
// PHP.net User notes<?php $string = "ʿABBĀSĀBĀD"; echo iconv('UTF-8', 'ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT', $string); // output: [nothing, and you get a notice] echo iconv('UTF-8', 'ISO-8859-1//IGNORE', $string); // output: ABBSBD echo iconv('UTF-8', 'ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT//IGNORE', $string); // output: ABBASABAD // Yay! That's what I wanted!?>Be very conscientious with your character encodings, so you are keeping the same encoding at all stages in the process - front end, form submission, encoding of the source files. Default encoding in PHP and in forms is ISO-8859-1, before PHP 5.4 where it changed to be UTF8 (finally!).
There's a couple of functions you can play around with for ideas. First is from CakePHP's inflector class, called slug:
public static function slug($string, $replacement = '_') { $quotedReplacement = preg_quote($replacement, '/'); $merge = array( '/[^\s\p{Ll}\p{Lm}\p{Lo}\p{Lt}\p{Lu}\p{Nd}]/mu' => ' ', '/\\s+/' => $replacement, sprintf('/^[%s]+|[%s]+$/', $quotedReplacement, $quotedReplacement) => '', ); $map = self::$_transliteration + $merge; return preg_replace(array_keys($map), array_values($map), $string);}It depends on a self::$_transliteration array which is similar to what you were doing in your question - you can see the source for inflector on github.
Another is a function I use personally, which comes from here.
function slugify($text,$strict = false) { $text = html_entity_decode($text, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); // replace non letter or digits by - $text = preg_replace('~[^\\pL\d.]+~u', '-', $text); // trim $text = trim($text, '-'); setlocale(LC_CTYPE, 'en_GB.utf8'); // transliterate if (function_exists('iconv')) { $text = iconv('utf-8', 'us-ascii//TRANSLIT', $text); } // lowercase $text = strtolower($text); // remove unwanted characters $text = preg_replace('~[^-\w.]+~', '', $text); if (empty($text)) { return 'empty_$'; } if ($strict) { $text = str_replace(".", "_", $text); } return $text;}What those functions do is transliterate and create 'slugs' from arbitrary text input, which is a very very useful thing to have in your toolchest when making web apps. Hope this helps!
Here is a way to have some flexibility in what should be discarded and what should be replaced.This is how I currently do it.
$string = 'À some string with junk Ĩ Ä ';
$replace = [ '<' => '', '>' => '', ''' => '', '&' => '', '"' => '', 'À' => 'A', 'Á' => 'A', 'Â' => 'A', 'Ã' => 'A', 'Ä' => 'Ae', 'Ä' => 'A', 'Å' => 'A', 'Ā' => 'A', 'Ą' => 'A', 'Ă' => 'A', 'Æ' => 'Ae', 'Ç' => 'C', 'Ć' => 'C', 'Č' => 'C', 'Ĉ' => 'C', 'Ċ' => 'C', 'Ď' => 'D', 'Đ' => 'D', 'Ð' => 'D', 'È' => 'E', 'É' => 'E', 'Ê' => 'E', 'Ë' => 'E', 'Ē' => 'E', 'Ę' => 'E', 'Ě' => 'E', 'Ĕ' => 'E', 'Ė' => 'E', 'Ĝ' => 'G', 'Ğ' => 'G', 'Ġ' => 'G', 'Ģ' => 'G', 'Ĥ' => 'H', 'Ħ' => 'H', 'Ì' => 'I', 'Í' => 'I', 'Î' => 'I', 'Ï' => 'I', 'Ī' => 'I', 'Ĩ' => 'I', 'Ĭ' => 'I', 'Į' => 'I', 'İ' => 'I', 'IJ' => 'IJ', 'Ĵ' => 'J', 'Ķ' => 'K', 'Ł' => 'L', 'Ľ' => 'L', 'Ĺ' => 'L', 'Ļ' => 'L', 'Ŀ' => 'L', 'Ñ' => 'N', 'Ń' => 'N', 'Ň' => 'N', 'Ņ' => 'N', 'Ŋ' => 'N', 'Ò' => 'O', 'Ó' => 'O', 'Ô' => 'O', 'Õ' => 'O', 'Ö' => 'Oe', 'Ö' => 'Oe', 'Ø' => 'O', 'Ō' => 'O', 'Ő' => 'O', 'Ŏ' => 'O', 'Œ' => 'OE', 'Ŕ' => 'R', 'Ř' => 'R', 'Ŗ' => 'R', 'Ś' => 'S', 'Š' => 'S', 'Ş' => 'S', 'Ŝ' => 'S', 'Ș' => 'S', 'Ť' => 'T', 'Ţ' => 'T', 'Ŧ' => 'T', 'Ț' => 'T', 'Ù' => 'U', 'Ú' => 'U', 'Û' => 'U', 'Ü' => 'Ue', 'Ū' => 'U', 'Ü' => 'Ue', 'Ů' => 'U', 'Ű' => 'U', 'Ŭ' => 'U', 'Ũ' => 'U', 'Ų' => 'U', 'Ŵ' => 'W', 'Ý' => 'Y', 'Ŷ' => 'Y', 'Ÿ' => 'Y', 'Ź' => 'Z', 'Ž' => 'Z', 'Ż' => 'Z', 'Þ' => 'T', 'à' => 'a', 'á' => 'a', 'â' => 'a', 'ã' => 'a', 'ä' => 'ae', 'ä' => 'ae', 'å' => 'a', 'ā' => 'a', 'ą' => 'a', 'ă' => 'a', 'æ' => 'ae', 'ç' => 'c', 'ć' => 'c', 'č' => 'c', 'ĉ' => 'c', 'ċ' => 'c', 'ď' => 'd', 'đ' => 'd', 'ð' => 'd', 'è' => 'e', 'é' => 'e', 'ê' => 'e', 'ë' => 'e', 'ē' => 'e', 'ę' => 'e', 'ě' => 'e', 'ĕ' => 'e', 'ė' => 'e', 'ƒ' => 'f', 'ĝ' => 'g', 'ğ' => 'g', 'ġ' => 'g', 'ģ' => 'g', 'ĥ' => 'h', 'ħ' => 'h', 'ì' => 'i', 'í' => 'i', 'î' => 'i', 'ï' => 'i', 'ī' => 'i', 'ĩ' => 'i', 'ĭ' => 'i', 'į' => 'i', 'ı' => 'i', 'ij' => 'ij', 'ĵ' => 'j', 'ķ' => 'k', 'ĸ' => 'k', 'ł' => 'l', 'ľ' => 'l', 'ĺ' => 'l', 'ļ' => 'l', 'ŀ' => 'l', 'ñ' => 'n', 'ń' => 'n', 'ň' => 'n', 'ņ' => 'n', 'ʼn' => 'n', 'ŋ' => 'n', 'ò' => 'o', 'ó' => 'o', 'ô' => 'o', 'õ' => 'o', 'ö' => 'oe', 'ö' => 'oe', 'ø' => 'o', 'ō' => 'o', 'ő' => 'o', 'ŏ' => 'o', 'œ' => 'oe', 'ŕ' => 'r', 'ř' => 'r', 'ŗ' => 'r', 'š' => 's', 'ù' => 'u', 'ú' => 'u', 'û' => 'u', 'ü' => 'ue', 'ū' => 'u', 'ü' => 'ue', 'ů' => 'u', 'ű' => 'u', 'ŭ' => 'u', 'ũ' => 'u', 'ų' => 'u', 'ŵ' => 'w', 'ý' => 'y', 'ÿ' => 'y', 'ŷ' => 'y', 'ž' => 'z', 'ż' => 'z', 'ź' => 'z', 'þ' => 't', 'ß' => 'ss', 'ſ' => 'ss', 'ый' => 'iy', 'А' => 'A', 'Б' => 'B', 'В' => 'V', 'Г' => 'G', 'Д' => 'D', 'Е' => 'E', 'Ё' => 'YO', 'Ж' => 'ZH', 'З' => 'Z', 'И' => 'I', 'Й' => 'Y', 'К' => 'K', 'Л' => 'L', 'М' => 'M', 'Н' => 'N', 'О' => 'O', 'П' => 'P', 'Р' => 'R', 'С' => 'S', 'Т' => 'T', 'У' => 'U', 'Ф' => 'F', 'Х' => 'H', 'Ц' => 'C', 'Ч' => 'CH', 'Ш' => 'SH', 'Щ' => 'SCH', 'Ъ' => '', 'Ы' => 'Y', 'Ь' => '', 'Э' => 'E', 'Ю' => 'YU', 'Я' => 'YA', 'а' => 'a', 'б' => 'b', 'в' => 'v', 'г' => 'g', 'д' => 'd', 'е' => 'e', 'ё' => 'yo', 'ж' => 'zh', 'з' => 'z', 'и' => 'i', 'й' => 'y', 'к' => 'k', 'л' => 'l', 'м' => 'm', 'н' => 'n', 'о' => 'o', 'п' => 'p', 'р' => 'r', 'с' => 's', 'т' => 't', 'у' => 'u', 'ф' => 'f', 'х' => 'h', 'ц' => 'c', 'ч' => 'ch', 'ш' => 'sh', 'щ' => 'sch', 'ъ' => '', 'ы' => 'y', 'ь' => '', 'э' => 'e', 'ю' => 'yu', 'я' => 'ya'];echo str_replace(array_keys($replace), $replace, $string);
As of PHP >= 5.4.0
$translatedString = transliterator_transliterate('Any-Latin; Latin-ASCII; [\u0080-\u7fff] remove', $string);