UTF-8 Encoding with internet explorer %u20AC to €

Question

I'm currently using TinyMCE as html editor for users of my CMS. Somehow the euro symbol (€) is converted to %u20AC by IE (any).

After a short search I found this. It gives a lot for different encodings for the UTF-8 euro symbol, but not %u20AC, with the percentage icon.

I have given the proper headers for UTF-8, so I gues IE is just being rude doing things its own way...

Is there a PHP function that can catch this strange encoding and put it to normal htmlentity (hex,decimal or named). I could just string_replace() this single problem symbol, but I'd rather fix all possible conflicts at once.

Or should I simply replace %u with &#x disabling normal usage of %u?

Where do you keep the symbol? In DB? Or directly in php file? — Vitalii Plodistov, Apr 06 '12 at 11:03

hakre · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-18T21:20:40.623

5

%u20AC is Unicode-encoded data for € which is generated by JavaScript escape() function^{MDN, ECMA262} to UTF8 for server-side processing.

Standard PHP urldecode() can not deal with it (it is a non-standard percent encoding^WP), so you need to use an extended routine:

/**
 * @param string $string unicode and ulrencoded string
 * @return string decoded string
 */
function utf8_urldecode($string) {
    $string = preg_replace(
        "/%u([0-9a-f]{3,4})/i",
        "&#x\\1;",
        urldecode($string)
    );
    return html_entity_decode($string, ENT_XML1, 'UTF-8');
}

Also check if you can configure this behaviour for your TinyMCE.

References

preg_replace() - Regular expression search and replace
urldecode() - Decode URL-encoded string
html_entity_decode() - Convert HTML entities to their corresponding characters (here: &x20AC -> € U+20AC EURO SIGN / \u{20AC} / \xE2\x82\xAC / \342\202\254)
3v4l.org example of this answer in action

edited Jul 18 '22 at 21:20

answered Apr 06 '12 at 11:03

hakre

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Thank you very much! Any idea why this doesn't happen in Firefox? – Gijs P Apr 06 '12 at 12:29
@Webscrabbler: Nope. It's probably related to TinyMCE, I have no clue why TinyMCE want's to escape that character anyway. – hakre Apr 06 '12 at 23:30
The function works, but I'm getting 'html_entity_decode(): Passing null to parameter #2 ($flags) of type int is deprecated'. How to fix that? – Jeroen Steen Jul 18 '22 at 19:34
1

@JeroenSteen: Thanks for asking. Basically to use the correct default value of the `$flags` parameter, compare https://www.php.net/html_entity_decode . This is just a pretty old answer and it hasn't seen `declare(strict_types=1);` nor anthing PHP 8. Will update the answer for PHP 5.4+ and compatible with _strict types_. – hakre Jul 18 '22 at 20:33

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 06 '12 at 10:59

0

20AC it's the HEX code of euro, so you can slove this problem easly just in your html file in stead of usign € try to use this code €

answered Apr 06 '12 at 10:59

Chlebta

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My customers use the TinyMCE platform and don't know what unicode is. They need to be able to simply use € in IE – Gijs P Apr 06 '12 at 11:02
Sorry but i dont know other way, try to check TinyMCE Menu you will find it probly ? – Chlebta Apr 06 '12 at 11:06

UTF-8 Encoding with internet explorer %u20AC to €

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