Converting string into web safe URI

Question

I have strings with special characters I want to convert. Usually I find all the special characters and their "web safe" counter parts manually and put them in arrays. Then I use preg_replace to replace each of the characters.

But I cannot help but thinking that there is an easier solution since it is error prune approach.

Here is an example of what I want:

Hans Günther -> hans-gunther
Jären höst   -> jaeren-hoest
René Ågesen  -> rene-aagesen

Answer 1

string urlencode ( string $str )

http://php.net/manual/en/function.urlencode.php

Actually here is a great post about converting text like your example above to nice url-safe strings (probably better for you than the above function):

http://cubiq.org/the-perfect-php-clean-url-generator

setlocale(LC_ALL, 'en_US.UTF8');
function toAscii($str, $replace=array(), $delimiter='-') {
 if( !empty($replace) ) {
  $str = str_replace((array)$replace, ' ', $str);
 }

 $clean = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $str);
 $clean = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\/_|+ -]/", '', $clean);
 $clean = strtolower(trim($clean, '-'));
 $clean = preg_replace("/[\/_|+ -]+/", $delimiter, $clean);

 return $clean;
}

Here are examples of what it does:

echo toAscii("Mess'd up --text-- just (to) stress /test/ ?our! `little` \\clean\\ url fun.ction!?-->");
returns: messd-up-text-just-to-stress-test-our-little-clean-url-function

echo toAscii("Perché l'erba è verde?", "'"); // Italian
returns: perche-l-erba-e-verde

echo toAscii("Peux-tu m'aider s'il te plaît?", "'"); // French
returns: peux-tu-m-aider-s-il-te-plait

echo toAscii("Tänk efter nu – förr'n vi föser dig bort"); // Swedish
returns: tank-efter-nu-forrn-vi-foser-dig-bort

echo toAscii("ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖÙÚÛÜÝßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöùúûüýÿ");
returns: aaaaaaaeceeeeiiiidnooooouuuuyssaaaaaaaeceeeeiiiidnooooouuuuyy

echo toAscii("Custom`delimiter*example", array('*', '`'));
returns: custom-delimiter-example

echo toAscii("My+Last_Crazy|delimiter/example", '', ' ');
returns: my last crazy delimiter example

If you want to convert something like ä to ae and etc you can use a script like this (sorry, don't know about a better way of doing this):

setlocale(LC_ALL, 'de_DE');
$replace = array(
 'illegal' => array('/Ä/', '/Ö/', '/Ü/', '/ä/', '/ö/', '/ü/', '/Â/', '/é/'),
 'legal' => array('Ae', 'Oe', 'Ue', 'ae', 'oe', 'ue', 'Aa', 'e')
 );
$string = 'ich hätte gerne brötechen Mein Name ist Öles Âlex';
echo preg_replace($replace['illegal'], $replace['legal'], $string);

//Output: "ich haette gerne broetechen Mein Name ist Oeles Aalex"

You can obviously put it all together like this (only converting ü->ue etc, just add more to the first preg_replace):

setlocale(LC_ALL, 'en_US.UTF8');
function toAscii($str, $replace=array(), $delimiter='-') {
    if( !empty($replace) ) {
        $str = str_replace((array)$replace, ' ', $str);
    }

 $clean = preg_replace(array('/Ä/', '/Ö/', '/Ü/', '/ä/', '/ö/', '/ü/'), array('Ae', 'Oe', 'Ue', 'ae', 'oe', 'ue'), $str);
    $clean = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $clean);
    $clean = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\/_|+ -]/", '', $clean);
    $clean = strtolower(trim($clean, '-'));
    $clean = preg_replace("/[\/_|+ -]+/", $delimiter, $clean);

    return $clean;
}

$text = "Hätten Sie gerne viele Brötchen? Wenn ja dann einfach *!@#$%^&*()eingeben...";
echo toAscii($text);
//OUTPUT: haetten-sie-gerne-viele-broetchen-wenn-ja-dann-einfach-eingeben

Answer 2

The code above didn't work for the characters accented.

For this purpose i had to replace myselt this caracters by the equivalent without accent:

function replace_accent($str) 
{ 
  $a = array('À', 'Á', 'Â', 'Ã', 'Ä', 'Å', 'Æ', 'Ç', 'È', 'É', 'Ê', 'Ë', 'Ì', 'Í', 'Î', 'Ï', 'Ð', 'Ñ', 'Ò', 'Ó', 'Ô', 'Õ', 'Ö', 'Ø', 'Ù', 'Ú', 'Û', 'Ü', 'Ý', 'ß', 'à', 'á', 'â', 'ã', 'ä', 'å', 'æ', 'ç', 'è', 'é', 'ê', 'ë', 'ì', 'í', 'î', 'ï', 'ñ', 'ò', 'ó', 'ô', 'õ', 'ö', 'ø', 'ù', 'ú', 'û', 'ü', 'ý', 'ÿ', 'Ā', 'ā', 'Ă', 'ă', 'Ą', 'ą', 'Ć', 'ć', 'Ĉ', 'ĉ', 'Ċ', 'ċ', 'Č', 'č', 'Ď', 'ď', 'Đ', 'đ', 'Ē', 'ē', 'Ĕ', 'ĕ', 'Ė', 'ė', 'Ę', 'ę', 'Ě', 'ě', 'Ĝ', 'ĝ', 'Ğ', 'ğ', 'Ġ', 'ġ', 'Ģ', 'ģ', 'Ĥ', 'ĥ', 'Ħ', 'ħ', 'Ĩ', 'ĩ', 'Ī', 'ī', 'Ĭ', 'ĭ', 'Į', 'į', 'İ', 'ı', 'IJ', 'ij', 'Ĵ', 'ĵ', 'Ķ', 'ķ', 'Ĺ', 'ĺ', 'Ļ', 'ļ', 'Ľ', 'ľ', 'Ŀ', 'ŀ', 'Ł', 'ł', 'Ń', 'ń', 'Ņ', 'ņ', 'Ň', 'ň', 'ʼn', 'Ō', 'ō', 'Ŏ', 'ŏ', 'Ő', 'ő', 'Œ', 'œ', 'Ŕ', 'ŕ', 'Ŗ', 'ŗ', 'Ř', 'ř', 'Ś', 'ś', 'Ŝ', 'ŝ', 'Ş', 'ş', 'Š', 'š', 'Ţ', 'ţ', 'Ť', 'ť', 'Ŧ', 'ŧ', 'Ũ', 'ũ', 'Ū', 'ū', 'Ŭ', 'ŭ', 'Ů', 'ů', 'Ű', 'ű', 'Ų', 'ų', 'Ŵ', 'ŵ', 'Ŷ', 'ŷ', 'Ÿ', 'Ź', 'ź', 'Ż', 'ż', 'Ž', 'ž', 'ſ', 'ƒ', 'Ơ', 'ơ', 'Ư', 'ư', 'Ǎ', 'ǎ', 'Ǐ', 'ǐ', 'Ǒ', 'ǒ', 'Ǔ', 'ǔ', 'Ǖ', 'ǖ', 'Ǘ', 'ǘ', 'Ǚ', 'ǚ', 'Ǜ', 'ǜ', 'Ǻ', 'ǻ', 'Ǽ', 'ǽ', 'Ǿ', 'ǿ'); 
  $b = array('A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'AE', 'C', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'D', 'N', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'Y', 's', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'ae', 'c', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'i', 'i', 'i', 'i', 'n', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'u', 'u', 'u', 'u', 'y', 'y', 'A', 'a', 'A', 'a', 'A', 'a', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'D', 'd', 'D', 'd', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'H', 'h', 'H', 'h', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'IJ', 'ij', 'J', 'j', 'K', 'k', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'l', 'l', 'N', 'n', 'N', 'n', 'N', 'n', 'n', 'O', 'o', 'O', 'o', 'O', 'o', 'OE', 'oe', 'R', 'r', 'R', 'r', 'R', 'r', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'T', 't', 'T', 't', 'T', 't', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'W', 'w', 'Y', 'y', 'Y', 'Z', 'z', 'Z', 'z', 'Z', 'z', 's', 'f', 'O', 'o', 'U', 'u', 'A', 'a', 'I', 'i', 'O', 'o', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'A', 'a', 'AE', 'ae', 'O', 'o'); 
  return str_replace($a, $b, $str); 
}
function toURI($str, $replace = array(), $delimiter = '-')
{
    if(!empty($replace))
    {
        $str = str_replace((array) $replace, ' ', $str);
    }

    $clean=replace_accent($str);
    $clean = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $clean);
    $clean = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\/_|+ -]/", '', $clean);
    $clean = strtolower(trim($clean, '-'));
    $clean = preg_replace("/[\/_|+ -]+/", $delimiter, $clean);

    return $clean;
}

This one make the job done.