PHP convert unicode spaces to ascii spaces

Question

So I'm having a problem where I believe what's happening is I'm receiving data that uses some unicode spaces and some ascii spaces, such that certain strings that appear the same are not equivalent, for example, "water resistant" != "water resistant". These strings appear differently in my database, however, with the weird characters you normally see when there's a multibyte character: "water resistantÂ" and " water resistant".

I would like a way to make all spaces be ascii spaces, or if easier, all spaces be multibyte spaces.

I've tried using preg_replace, but then the strings no longer read like valid multibyte strings anymore. (Multibyte characters in the strings will appear as garbage).

preg_replace('/[\pZ\pC]/',' ',$field);

I've also tried using mb_ereg_replace, but it had no effect.

mb_ereg_replace('/[\pZ\pC]/',' ',$field)

Answer 1

It looks like preg_replace('/[\pZ\pC]/u',' ',$field); works (forgot the u at the end of the regex)

Answer 2

You can find and replace them with standard ascii spaces if you wanted via:

$string = str_replace("\xc2\xa0", "\x20", $string);

Answer 3

I think you're looking for utf8_decode($field).

Answer 4

Those spaces that you call unicode spaces are non-breaking spaces ( what & nbsp; stands for ).

When saving the data, you have to clean it first. Replace all non-breaking spaces by normal spaces, replace double spaces by single and finally trim the string.