Doc #74528 [Opn->Nab]: mb_check_encoding Documentation Confusing

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=74528&edit=1 ID: 74528 Updated by: cmb@php.net Reported by: james dot antrim at nm dot thm dot de Summary: mb_check_encoding Documentation Confusing -Status: Open +Status: Not a bug Type: Documentation Problem -Package: Documentation problem +Package: mbstring related Operating System: Debian 3.16.39-1+deb8u2 (2017-03 PHP Version: 5.6.30 -Assigned To: +Assigned To: cmb Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: mb_detect_encoding() is not supposed to do any conversion, so the documentation is correct in this regard. However, if you want to check for 'UTF-8' (and maybe other encodings as well), you have to use strict detection, see <https://3v4l.org/DFIAs> vs. <https://3v4l.org/M23D4> and also <http://php.net/manual/en/function.mb-detect-encoding.php#102510>. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2017-05-02 10:08:21] james dot antrim at nm dot thm dot de Description: ------------ --- From manual page: http://www.php.net/function.mb-detect-encoding --- I saved a file that was originally ISO-8859-1 to several different coding standards, among them UTF-8 and Japanese Shift JIS. When using this function with 'UTF-8' as the 'encoding list' parameter I always get 'UTF-8' as the return value. I assume this is working as intended, because it really solves both the problem of detection and conversion in one function. I find the return documentation more than confusing, because, despite the function being called 'detect' it does not tell me the original string's encoding, but the encoding of the converted string if conversion was possible. My suggestion would be: "The character encoding or FALSE if the encoding cannot be converted to any of the given strings." Test script: --------------- Convert any ISO-8859-1 file to any other encoding, then run mb_detect_encoding($file, 'UTF-8', true) on it. This same documentation problem is evident for mb_check_encoding($file, 'UTF-8') which will always return true under the same conditions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=74528&edit=1