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<h1 class="refname">utf8_encode</h1>
<p class="verinfo">(PHP 4, PHP 5)</p><p class="refpurpose"><span class="refname">utf8_encode</span> — <span class="dc-title">Encodes an ISO-8859-1 string to UTF-8</span></p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 description" id="refsect1-function.utf8-encode-description">
<h3 class="title">Description</h3>
<div class="methodsynopsis dc-description">
<span class="type">string</span> <span class="methodname"><strong>utf8_encode</strong></span>
( <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">string</span> <code class="parameter">$data</code></span>
)</div>
<p class="para rdfs-comment">
This function encodes the string <em><code class="parameter">data</code></em> to
<em>UTF-8</em>, and returns the encoded version.
<em>UTF-8</em> is a standard mechanism used by
<acronym title="Unique, Universal, and Uniform character enCoding">Unicode</acronym> for encoding <span class="glossterm">wide
character</span> values into a byte stream.
<em>UTF-8</em> is transparent to plain <abbr class="abbrev">ASCII</abbr>
characters, is self-synchronized (meaning it is possible for a program to
figure out where in the bytestream characters start) and can be used with
normal string comparison functions for sorting and such. PHP encodes
<em>UTF-8</em> characters in up to four bytes, like this:
<table class="doctable table">
<caption><strong>UTF-8 encoding</strong></caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>bytes</th>
<th>bits</th>
<th>representation</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0bbbbbbb</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>11</td>
<td>110bbbbb 10bbbbbb</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>16</td>
<td>1110bbbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>21</td>
<td>11110bbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Each <span class="replaceable">b</span> represents a bit that can be
used to store character data.
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 parameters" id="refsect1-function.utf8-encode-parameters">
<h3 class="title">Parameters</h3>
<p class="para">
<dl>
<dt>
<span class="term"><em><code class="parameter">data</code></em></span>
<dd>
<p class="para">
An ISO-8859-1 string.
</p>
</dd>
</dt>
</dl>
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 returnvalues" id="refsect1-function.utf8-encode-returnvalues">
<h3 class="title">Return Values</h3>
<p class="para">
Returns the UTF-8 translation of <em><code class="parameter">data</code></em>.
</p>
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