I have set of strings where some of them are made of non-ascii characters. How do I get strings with only ascii characters using a php script.
Thanks a lot in advance for any guidance..
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1do you want to ignore the entire string if they have non-ascii characters, ignore just the characters, or replace the characters?helloandre– helloandre2011-02-07 19:28:06 +00:00Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 19:28
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ASCII chars including non-printable characters?Gordon– Gordon2011-02-07 19:31:22 +00:00Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 19:31
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2 Answers
<?php
echo preg_replace('/[^(\x20-\x7F)]*/', '', 'Standard ASCII and some gärbägè');
?>
3 Comments
gcb
you can still get characters you are not checking for. always whitelist! match for things you know you want. it is much less error prone.
Saul
@gcb - No you don't. In fact, this already is a whitelist -- "reject everything that is not a printable ASCII character". If it were a blacklist, it would say -- "reject these specific non-printable or non-ASCII characters and accept everything else". You have it backwards.
gcb
you are correct. missed the
^ there and assumed the hex codes were for things out of printable range. will blame it on lack of coffee :) thanks for setting me straight.Probably the easiest option is to use the iconv function (if the iconv extension is available), using either the //IGNORE or //TRANSLIT option (see the documentation), if the behavior suits your needs.
2 Comments
doni
Hello Everybody, I want only printable ASCII charecters.
gcb
iconv only works on encoding it understand now. let's say you have the string
a^Xb (^X being a control char). iconv will never remove it, because ^X is not part of any encoding it understands. it used to remove it with //IGNORE, but if you follow the bugs on the top comment for iconv you will see that is not the case anymore.