Doc #73750 [Ver->Csd]: Additions to documentation on iconv() //TRANSLIT option

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=73750&edit=1 ID: 73750 Updated by: cmb@php.net Reported by: codedokode at gmail dot com Summary: Additions to documentation on iconv() //TRANSLIT option -Status: Verified +Status: Closed Type: Documentation Problem Package: ICONV related Operating System: * PHP Version: Irrelevant Assigned To: cmb Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: This bug has been fixed in the documentation's XML sources. Since the online and downloadable versions of the documentation need some time to get updated, we would like to ask you to be a bit patient. Thank you for the report, and for helping us make our documentation better. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2017-01-07 14:50:03] cmb@php.net Automatic comment from SVN on behalf of cmb Revision: http://svn.php.net/viewvc/?view=revision&amp;revision=341618 Log: Fix #73750: Additions to documentation on iconv() //TRANSLIT option ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2016-12-15 16:43:10] codedokode at gmail dot com 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 this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=73750&edit=1