Doc #73750 [NEW]: Additions to documentation on iconv() //TRANSLIT option

From: codedokode at gmail dot com Operating system: Windows PHP version: Irrelevant Package: Documentation problem Bug Type: Documentation Problem Bug description:Additions to documentation on iconv() //TRANSLIT option Description: ------------ --- From manual page: http://www.php.net/function.iconv --- The documentation on iconv() mentions //TRANSLIT option that transliterates the characters. But this option does not always work, it depends on what library is providing iconv() function. I think we should add a note about it so that the users would not have to look through PHP sources, build configurations and external libraries documentation to find out why their code does not work as expected. For example this code behaves differently on different OS: <?php var_dump(iconv("utf-8", "ASCII//TRANSLIT", "Hello Привет ßö")); On Linux it prints "Hello ?????? sso" (cyrillic characters are transliterated into question marks). On Windows iconv() returns false and a notice is generated ("PHP Notice: iconv(): Detected an illegal character in input string"). That is because PHP uses glibc version of iconv() on Linux and something else (libiconv, I guess) on Windows. This is difficult to find out unless the developer knows C and has a patience to understand how PHP iconv() function is implemented. I understand that PHP provides just a wrapper around external function but now the documentation asserts that //TRANSLIT option works. I suggest adding the following notice to documentation: //TRANSLIT option currently only works in Linux versions of PHP built with iconv() function impoted from glibc (<how to find out what library is used>). On Windows this option usually doesn't work and iconv() will generate notice and return false if the character cannot be represented in the output charset. The developers of portable programs are recommended not to use it. //TRANSLIT option does not transliterates characters from non-latin alphabets into latin characters even if they look or sound the same. For example, when converting from utf-8 to ASCII//TRANSLIT it will convert non-latin letters to question marks, not latin characters. Test script: --------------- <?php var_dump(iconv("utf-8", "ASCII//TRANSLIT", "Hello Привет ßö")); -- Edit bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=73750&edit=1 -- Try a snapshot (PHP 5.4): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=trysnapshot54 Try a snapshot (PHP 5.5): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=trysnapshot55 Try a snapshot (trunk): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=trysnapshottrunk Fixed in SVN: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=fixed Fixed in release: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=alreadyfixed Need backtrace: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=needtrace Need Reproduce Script: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=needscript Try newer version: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=oldversion Not developer issue: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=support Expected behavior: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=notwrong Not enough info: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=notenoughinfo Submitted twice: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=submittedtwice register_globals: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=globals PHP 4 support discontinued: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=php4 Daylight Savings: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=dst IIS Stability: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=isapi Install GNU Sed: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=gnused Floating point limitations: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=float No Zend Extensions: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=nozend MySQL Configuration Error: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=73750&r=mysqlcfg