Convert Special Characters Back to ASCII or Readable

[fox12]

I have some special chars like hyphen, quotes etc in a string. They are stored in MySql database. When I queried the record directly from the db, it appears that the records is fine by showing a hyphen (-) or quotes (either single or double). However, when I read it from the database, and write it to a text file, the hyphen appears as "<96>" without quotes. e.g.:

Normal: Topic Title - Here is a brief description
Abnormal: Topic Title <96> Here is a brief description

How can I convert it back to a hyphen? Thanks so much in advance.

 

[feherke]

Hi

Well, the short answer is use recode.

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[fox12]

Thanks for your answer. But I don't think my server has "recode" installed. I tried that, but it did not work. I also try "iconv" to convert it from iso-8859-1 to utf-8 and print it to a web page. This time, it shows as a strange sign.

Since the previous developer left my company, no one else know how it was ENCODED before data was entered into the database. Hence, I don't know how to DECODED them either.

what may be the possible way to convert a hyphen "-" to "<96>"? When I view it in a sql query, the hyphen show properly.

 

[vacunita]

You could use str_replace, to change all occurrences of the "<96>" string into a real hyphen. Though I still can't figure out how it was encoded to make a hyphen <96> its defintely not ASCII as a hyphen would be 45 not 96 in ASCII.

Anyway:

$newstring=str_replace("<96>","-",$mystring);

Is there something done to the query output before being displayed? Perhaps a function or something that takes the query results and does something to them?

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[fox12]

Vacunita,

Thank you very much. I did a str_replace, and it did write to a text file with a hyphen properly. However, I still have a problem in displaying it properly in a web browser.

I use a simple query like "select * from myTable where ID = ?" to grab the data. But I have a specified <div> in the web page, and update the content of the <div> by calling a php script via Ajax.
....
ob_start();

// connect to db and retrieve data here
...

// write to a log file
$str = ob_get_clean();
$str = preg_replace("<96>", "-", $x);
if ($s != null ) {
$logFile = "/tmp/custOrder.log";
$fh = fopen($logFile, "a+");
fwrite($fh, $str);
fclose($fh);
}
// so far so good

//to get an instance of the target page
$targetPage = (object)getPageInstance();

******** Problem Start below ********
** not sure which line **
** **********************************
//to update the value in the specified <div>
$targetPage->myDiv = $str;
echo json_encode($targetPage);

**** all the codes above are located in one php script ****
**** and called by ajax; and works fine for other ****
**** records without a hyphen or a special chars ****

 

[vacunita]

Nothing seems amiss in your code.

unless the instantiation of the newpage is using a different $str variable than the one you ran through the preg_replace function, it should work.


By the way, since you aren't using complex patterns for the replacement, you should use str_replace() instead of preg_replace(). as it is faster and less resource intensive. Even the PHP manual suggests using str_replace instead of preg-replace.

That however should not have any effect on your output.

Make sure the $str variable being used to pass the contents to the instance of the page is the same one that was run through the replacement function.





----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[fox12]

I am sure I am using the right instance of the page. If I take off the "description" field value which contains the hyphen, it will work fine.

It now seems an Ajax issue now. I added the exit(0) before echo json_encode($targetPage), and the page popped up a javascript saying that it is missing a right parenthesis ")".

 

[vacunita]

You should check your page contents, seems like you are missing something in the JS/AJAX part of the generation.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[fox12]

good idea. I'll check that, and get back. Thanks so much.