How to unify text file encoding to utf-8 in PHP

I'm Nishimura, the creator of QuizGenerator, and I've been working on it since the release of version 2.0. In fact, I didn't participate in the early development of learningBOX, but I started to participate in it from the release of version 2.0. This time, I'm going to take part in the development ofHandling of character codesI thought I should talk a bit more about character codes, so I've put together an article about it.
In this article.How to unify text file encoding to utf-8 in PHPWe are pleased to introduce you to the following. We hope you enjoy this paper as much as we do.

Content

• 1. Shift-JIS is unavoidable.
• 2. how to avoid garbled text
• 3. how do we determine the character code?
• 4. Summary

 

Shift-JIS is unavoidable.

Systems such as learningBOX and QuizGenerator may receive text files such as CSVs. In a modern web system, you should use utf-8 as the text file's character code, and you don't want to accept any other character code, but as a practical matterShift_JISfiles are rarelyoftenIt will be uploaded and reported as a defect.
So, in QuizGeneratorShift_JISfiles are converted to utf-8 and then the process continues.

 

I don't trust mb_convert_encoding.

PHP has a function called mb_convert_encoding, which can convert the character code. At first glance, this function seems to be able to determine the character code and convert it to utf-8 just by using this function, but actually, this function is not trustworthy.

mb_convert_encoding("ah", "utf-8", "utf-8, sjis-win" ), then if "ah" is utf-8, it should be converted to utf-8 as is, and if it's Shift_JIS, it should be converted to utf-8 (at least as far as the official documentation is concerned). In fact, they do a hell of a lot of things.
If you take a string passed in utf-8 and force it to be interpreted as Shift_JIS, break it, and convert it to utf-8, you will get an incomprehensible value.

 

How to avoid garbled text

If you specify the source character code, mb_convert_encoding will work properly.
mb_convert_encoding works correctly as long as you specify the source character code. In other words, convert from Shift_JIS to utf-8 only in the case of Shift_JIS and do nothing in the case of utf-8, which basically works.

mb_convert_encoding("ah", "utf-8", "sjis-win")
The above code will work fine if "Ahhh" is Shift_JIS. In the case of utf-8, you can use it as it is.

 

How do we determine the character code?

There is a function called mb_detect_encoding, which, if it works correctly in the first place, can be solved simply by using mb_convert_encoding.

If the standard function doesn't work, you'll have to do it on your own.

Just do it because it's not that hard to determine if you meet the utf-8 specification.

 

What if it's not utf-8?

If it's not utf-8, ・・・・ treat it as Shift_JIS. I can't support it until someone brings up euc-jp or utf-16 files. At least, people who do that should know about the encoding, so please do self-service. I can't support people who want to use euc-jp or utf-16 files.

 

Another trap.

I've used the term Shift_JIS many times in this article, but what is now called Shift_JIS is an extension of Shift_JISWindows-31J (MS932)It is often the case that the
However, if you specify Shift_JIS in PHP, all characters other than those specified in the original Shift_JIS specification will be garbled. Unless you have a special reason, please use Windows-31J or sjis-win instead of Shift_JIS. The official document says to use Windows-31J, but only sjis-win is listed, which is a strange situation, but at least with PHP 7.3.13, both of these options worked fine.

 

Will a unified future ever come?

About 20 years ago. When I first started web programming, UTF-8 was non-standard and garbled characters were an everyday occurrence. It seems safe to say that the unification of
Smartphones were born after the spread of utf-8, so they are built on the premise of utf-8 (so they tend to be garbled by files encoded in other formats, such as Shift_JIS). (Therefore, Shift_JIS and other encoding files tend to be garbled) On the other hand, files exchanged on Windows are often Shift_JIS.

 

Summary

In this article, I have introduced "How to unify the encoding of text files into utf-8 in PHP". As we are a company from Japan, we would like to keep Shift_JIS in mind for a while longer as we try to make our products easy to use for the Japanese.(I really wish I could forget about IE11...)