How to Remove Accents from Characters in a PHP String

How do I remove accents from characters in a PHP string?

I think the problem here is that your encodings consider ä and å different symbols to 'a'. In fact, the PHP documentation for strtr offers a sample for removing accents the ugly way :(

http://ie2.php.net/strtr

Replacing accented characters php

I have tried all sorts based on the variations listed in the answers, but the following worked:

$unwanted_array = array(    'Š'=>'S', 'š'=>'s', 'Ž'=>'Z', 'ž'=>'z', 'À'=>'A', 'Á'=>'A', 'Â'=>'A', 'Ã'=>'A', 'Ä'=>'A', 'Å'=>'A', 'Æ'=>'A', 'Ç'=>'C', 'È'=>'E', 'É'=>'E',
                            'Ê'=>'E', 'Ë'=>'E', 'Ì'=>'I', 'Í'=>'I', 'Î'=>'I', 'Ï'=>'I', 'Ñ'=>'N', 'Ò'=>'O', 'Ó'=>'O', 'Ô'=>'O', 'Õ'=>'O', 'Ö'=>'O', 'Ø'=>'O', 'Ù'=>'U',
                            'Ú'=>'U', 'Û'=>'U', 'Ü'=>'U', 'Ý'=>'Y', 'Þ'=>'B', 'ß'=>'Ss', 'à'=>'a', 'á'=>'a', 'â'=>'a', 'ã'=>'a', 'ä'=>'a', 'å'=>'a', 'æ'=>'a', 'ç'=>'c',
                            'è'=>'e', 'é'=>'e', 'ê'=>'e', 'ë'=>'e', 'ì'=>'i', 'í'=>'i', 'î'=>'i', 'ï'=>'i', 'ð'=>'o', 'ñ'=>'n', 'ò'=>'o', 'ó'=>'o', 'ô'=>'o', 'õ'=>'o',
                            'ö'=>'o', 'ø'=>'o', 'ù'=>'u', 'ú'=>'u', 'û'=>'u', 'ý'=>'y', 'þ'=>'b', 'ÿ'=>'y' );
$str = strtr( $str, $unwanted_array );

Remove diacritics from a string

There is a function that Wordpress uses and works nice. Here's the working code with output.

<?php

function seems_utf8($str)
{
    $length = strlen($str);
    for ($i=0; $i < $length; $i++) {
        $c = ord($str[$i]);
        if ($c < 0x80) $n = 0; # 0bbbbbbb
        elseif (($c & 0xE0) == 0xC0) $n=1; # 110bbbbb
        elseif (($c & 0xF0) == 0xE0) $n=2; # 1110bbbb
        elseif (($c & 0xF8) == 0xF0) $n=3; # 11110bbb
        elseif (($c & 0xFC) == 0xF8) $n=4; # 111110bb
        elseif (($c & 0xFE) == 0xFC) $n=5; # 1111110b
        else return false; # Does not match any model
        for ($j=0; $j<$n; $j++) { # n bytes matching 10bbbbbb follow ?
            if ((++$i == $length) || ((ord($str[$i]) & 0xC0) != 0x80))
                return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

/**
 * Converts all accent characters to ASCII characters.
 *
 * If there are no accent characters, then the string given is just returned.
 *
 * @param string $string Text that might have accent characters
 * @return string Filtered string with replaced "nice" characters.
 */
function remove_accents($string) {
    if ( !preg_match('/[\x80-\xff]/', $string) )
        return $string;

    if (seems_utf8($string)) {
        $chars = array(
        // Decompositions for Latin-1 Supplement
        chr(195).chr(128) => 'A', chr(195).chr(129) => 'A',
        chr(195).chr(130) => 'A', chr(195).chr(131) => 'A',
        chr(195).chr(132) => 'A', chr(195).chr(133) => 'A',
        chr(195).chr(135) => 'C', chr(195).chr(136) => 'E',
        chr(195).chr(137) => 'E', chr(195).chr(138) => 'E',
        chr(195).chr(139) => 'E', chr(195).chr(140) => 'I',
        chr(195).chr(141) => 'I', chr(195).chr(142) => 'I',
        chr(195).chr(143) => 'I', chr(195).chr(145) => 'N',
        chr(195).chr(146) => 'O', chr(195).chr(147) => 'O',
        chr(195).chr(148) => 'O', chr(195).chr(149) => 'O',
        chr(195).chr(150) => 'O', chr(195).chr(153) => 'U',
        chr(195).chr(154) => 'U', chr(195).chr(155) => 'U',
        chr(195).chr(156) => 'U', chr(195).chr(157) => 'Y',
        chr(195).chr(159) => 's', chr(195).chr(160) => 'a',
        chr(195).chr(161) => 'a', chr(195).chr(162) => 'a',
        chr(195).chr(163) => 'a', chr(195).chr(164) => 'a',
        chr(195).chr(165) => 'a', chr(195).chr(167) => 'c',
        chr(195).chr(168) => 'e', chr(195).chr(169) => 'e',
        chr(195).chr(170) => 'e', chr(195).chr(171) => 'e',
        chr(195).chr(172) => 'i', chr(195).chr(173) => 'i',
        chr(195).chr(174) => 'i', chr(195).chr(175) => 'i',
        chr(195).chr(177) => 'n', chr(195).chr(178) => 'o',
        chr(195).chr(179) => 'o', chr(195).chr(180) => 'o',
        chr(195).chr(181) => 'o', chr(195).chr(182) => 'o',
        chr(195).chr(182) => 'o', chr(195).chr(185) => 'u',
        chr(195).chr(186) => 'u', chr(195).chr(187) => 'u',
        chr(195).chr(188) => 'u', chr(195).chr(189) => 'y',
        chr(195).chr(191) => 'y',
        // Decompositions for Latin Extended-A
        chr(196).chr(128) => 'A', chr(196).chr(129) => 'a',
        chr(196).chr(130) => 'A', chr(196).chr(131) => 'a',
        chr(196).chr(132) => 'A', chr(196).chr(133) => 'a',
        chr(196).chr(134) => 'C', chr(196).chr(135) => 'c',
        chr(196).chr(136) => 'C', chr(196).chr(137) => 'c',
        chr(196).chr(138) => 'C', chr(196).chr(139) => 'c',
        chr(196).chr(140) => 'C', chr(196).chr(141) => 'c',
        chr(196).chr(142) => 'D', chr(196).chr(143) => 'd',
        chr(196).chr(144) => 'D', chr(196).chr(145) => 'd',
        chr(196).chr(146) => 'E', chr(196).chr(147) => 'e',
        chr(196).chr(148) => 'E', chr(196).chr(149) => 'e',
        chr(196).chr(150) => 'E', chr(196).chr(151) => 'e',
        chr(196).chr(152) => 'E', chr(196).chr(153) => 'e',
        chr(196).chr(154) => 'E', chr(196).chr(155) => 'e',
        chr(196).chr(156) => 'G', chr(196).chr(157) => 'g',
        chr(196).chr(158) => 'G', chr(196).chr(159) => 'g',
        chr(196).chr(160) => 'G', chr(196).chr(161) => 'g',
        chr(196).chr(162) => 'G', chr(196).chr(163) => 'g',
        chr(196).chr(164) => 'H', chr(196).chr(165) => 'h',
        chr(196).chr(166) => 'H', chr(196).chr(167) => 'h',
        chr(196).chr(168) => 'I', chr(196).chr(169) => 'i',
        chr(196).chr(170) => 'I', chr(196).chr(171) => 'i',
        chr(196).chr(172) => 'I', chr(196).chr(173) => 'i',
        chr(196).chr(174) => 'I', chr(196).chr(175) => 'i',
        chr(196).chr(176) => 'I', chr(196).chr(177) => 'i',
        chr(196).chr(178) => 'IJ',chr(196).chr(179) => 'ij',
        chr(196).chr(180) => 'J', chr(196).chr(181) => 'j',
        chr(196).chr(182) => 'K', chr(196).chr(183) => 'k',
        chr(196).chr(184) => 'k', chr(196).chr(185) => 'L',
        chr(196).chr(186) => 'l', chr(196).chr(187) => 'L',
        chr(196).chr(188) => 'l', chr(196).chr(189) => 'L',
        chr(196).chr(190) => 'l', chr(196).chr(191) => 'L',
        chr(197).chr(128) => 'l', chr(197).chr(129) => 'L',
        chr(197).chr(130) => 'l', chr(197).chr(131) => 'N',
        chr(197).chr(132) => 'n', chr(197).chr(133) => 'N',
        chr(197).chr(134) => 'n', chr(197).chr(135) => 'N',
        chr(197).chr(136) => 'n', chr(197).chr(137) => 'N',
        chr(197).chr(138) => 'n', chr(197).chr(139) => 'N',
        chr(197).chr(140) => 'O', chr(197).chr(141) => 'o',
        chr(197).chr(142) => 'O', chr(197).chr(143) => 'o',
        chr(197).chr(144) => 'O', chr(197).chr(145) => 'o',
        chr(197).chr(146) => 'OE',chr(197).chr(147) => 'oe',
        chr(197).chr(148) => 'R',chr(197).chr(149) => 'r',
        chr(197).chr(150) => 'R',chr(197).chr(151) => 'r',
        chr(197).chr(152) => 'R',chr(197).chr(153) => 'r',
        chr(197).chr(154) => 'S',chr(197).chr(155) => 's',
        chr(197).chr(156) => 'S',chr(197).chr(157) => 's',
        chr(197).chr(158) => 'S',chr(197).chr(159) => 's',
        chr(197).chr(160) => 'S', chr(197).chr(161) => 's',
        chr(197).chr(162) => 'T', chr(197).chr(163) => 't',
        chr(197).chr(164) => 'T', chr(197).chr(165) => 't',
        chr(197).chr(166) => 'T', chr(197).chr(167) => 't',
        chr(197).chr(168) => 'U', chr(197).chr(169) => 'u',
        chr(197).chr(170) => 'U', chr(197).chr(171) => 'u',
        chr(197).chr(172) => 'U', chr(197).chr(173) => 'u',
        chr(197).chr(174) => 'U', chr(197).chr(175) => 'u',
        chr(197).chr(176) => 'U', chr(197).chr(177) => 'u',
        chr(197).chr(178) => 'U', chr(197).chr(179) => 'u',
        chr(197).chr(180) => 'W', chr(197).chr(181) => 'w',
        chr(197).chr(182) => 'Y', chr(197).chr(183) => 'y',
        chr(197).chr(184) => 'Y', chr(197).chr(185) => 'Z',
        chr(197).chr(186) => 'z', chr(197).chr(187) => 'Z',
        chr(197).chr(188) => 'z', chr(197).chr(189) => 'Z',
        chr(197).chr(190) => 'z', chr(197).chr(191) => 's',
        // Euro Sign
        chr(226).chr(130).chr(172) => 'E',
        // GBP (Pound) Sign
        chr(194).chr(163) => '');

        $string = strtr($string, $chars);
    } else {
        // Assume ISO-8859-1 if not UTF-8
        $chars['in'] = chr(128).chr(131).chr(138).chr(142).chr(154).chr(158)
            .chr(159).chr(162).chr(165).chr(181).chr(192).chr(193).chr(194)
            .chr(195).chr(196).chr(197).chr(199).chr(200).chr(201).chr(202)
            .chr(203).chr(204).chr(205).chr(206).chr(207).chr(209).chr(210)
            .chr(211).chr(212).chr(213).chr(214).chr(216).chr(217).chr(218)
            .chr(219).chr(220).chr(221).chr(224).chr(225).chr(226).chr(227)
            .chr(228).chr(229).chr(231).chr(232).chr(233).chr(234).chr(235)
            .chr(236).chr(237).chr(238).chr(239).chr(241).chr(242).chr(243)
            .chr(244).chr(245).chr(246).chr(248).chr(249).chr(250).chr(251)
            .chr(252).chr(253).chr(255);

        $chars['out'] = "EfSZszYcYuAAAAAACEEEEIIIINOOOOOOUUUUYaaaaaaceeeeiiiinoooooouuuuyy";

        $string = strtr($string, $chars['in'], $chars['out']);
        $double_chars['in'] = array(chr(140), chr(156), chr(198), chr(208), chr(222), chr(223), chr(230), chr(240), chr(254));
        $double_chars['out'] = array('OE', 'oe', 'AE', 'DH', 'TH', 'ss', 'ae', 'dh', 'th');
        $string = str_replace($double_chars['in'], $double_chars['out'], $string);
    }

    return $string;
}


$str = "ľ š č ť ž ý á í é Č Á Ž Ý";
echo remove_accents($str); // Output: l s c t z y a i e C A Z Y
?>

PHP remove accents - with COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT

Like @Casimir et Hippolyte pointed out:

There are two ways to represent an accented letter like á in UTF-8: the first uses a single unicode point: U+00E1: LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE, the second uses two unicode points: U+0061: LATIN SMALL LETTER A and the combining character: U+0301: COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT. Using the intl package, you can force a string to use unique code points for all glyphs when it is possible

It's possible to normalize them with PHP Normalizer class http://php.net/normalizer.

So first i need to normalize them, than replace.

Thanks to everyone that tried to help.

How to remove diacritics from text?

// normalize data (remove accent marks) using PHP's *intl* extension
$data = normalizer_normalize($data);

// replace everything NOT in the sets you specified with an underscore
$data = preg_replace("#[^A-Za-z1-9]#","_", $data);

How to remove accents and turn letters into plain ASCII characters?

If you have iconv installed, try this (the example assumes your input string is in UTF-8):

echo iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $string);

(iconv is a library to convert between all kinds of encodings; it's efficient and included with many PHP distributions by default. Most of all, it's definitely easier and more error-proof than trying to roll your own solution (did you know that there's a "Latin letter N with a curl"? Me neither.))

Replace Accented Characters

Trying to find a solution to your problem I have found this question:

multibyte strtr() -> mb_strtr()

In the chosen answer Alix Axel writes a function which is exactly what you need:

function Unaccent($string)
{
    return preg_replace('~&([a-z]{1,2})(?:acute|cedil|circ|grave|lig|orn|ring|slash|th|tilde|uml|caron);~i', '$1', htmlentities($string, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'));
}

echo Unaccent(html_entity_decode('Áhkká'));

prints Ahkka

Problem with function removing accents and other characters in PHP

I have tested your code, and error is in strtolower function...

Replace it with mb_strtolower, like bellow

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>

<?php
    function strClean($input) {
        $input = mb_strtolower($input, 'UTF-8');
        $b = array("á","é","í","ó","ú", "n", " ");
        $c = array("a","e","i","o","u","n", "-");
        return str_replace($b, $c, $input);
    }

    $string = 'á é í ó ú n abcdef ghij';
    echo $string ."<br />". strClean($string);
?>

</body>
</html>

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