mb_convert_encoding converting to ASCII instead of UTF-8

Robert William Vesterman <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:40:12 -0400

I've run into a problem where mb_convert_encoding seems to be converting 
to ASCII, even though I'm telling it to convert to UTF-8.  This is with 
PHP version 4.3.11.

I had been asking it to convert from "auto" to UTF-8, so at first I 
thought maybe "auto" was not the right choice.  So I called 
"mb_detect_encoding" to see the format of what I was trying to convert; 
it said it was already UTF-8 (before I did the conversion). 

So then I thought maybe I got the "from" and "to" parameters backwards 
(although I was confident I was following the documentation), so I 
changed mb_convert_encoding to use "UTF-8" as /both/ the from and to.

It still converts to ASCII.

I understand that, given that it's already UTF-8, I don't need to 
convert it to UTF-8.  But other things that I receive might /not/ be 
UTF-8, so I am still concerned with this.

Sample code:

  <html><head><title>Minnie</title></head><body><p>
  <?php
  $x = $_REQUEST['Minnie'];
  echo $x . ' ... ' . mb_detect_encoding ( $x ) . '<br/>';
  $x = mb_convert_encoding ( $x, "UTF-8", "UTF-8" );
  echo $x . ' ... ' . mb_detect_encoding ( $x ) . '<br/>';
  ?>
  </p></body></html>

Output, when called with URL parameter "Minnie=Miñoso":

  Miñoso ... UTF-8
  Mioso ... ASCII

Then I changed the "from" so that I could try converting from something 
other than UTF-8:

  $x = mb_convert_encoding ( $x, "UTF-8", mb_detect_encoding ( $x ) );

And now, output when called with "Minnie=Mouse":

  Mouse ... ASCII
  Mouse ... ASCII

Does anyone have any idea what's going on here? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help.

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