PHP Manual: Converts a string from UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1, replacing invalid or unrepresentable characters

Description

string utf8_decode(string $string)

This function converts the string string from the UTF-8 encoding to ISO-8859-1. Bytes in the string which are not valid UTF-8, and UTF-8 characters which do not exist in ISO-8859-1 (that is, code points above U+00FF) are replaced with ?.

Note:
Many web pages marked as using the ISO-8859-1 character encoding actually use the similar Windows-1252 encoding, and web browsers will interpret ISO-8859-1 web pages as Windows-1252. Windows-1252 features additional printable characters, such as the Euro sign (€) and curly quotes (“ ”), instead of certain ISO-8859-1 control characters. This function will not convert such Windows-1252 characters correctly. Use a different function if Windows-1252 conversion is required.

Parameters

string: A UTF-8 encoded string.

Return Values

Returns the ISO-8859-1 translation of string.

Changelog

Version	Description
8.2.0	This function has been deprecated.
7.2.0	This function has been moved from the XML extension to the core of PHP. In previous versions, it was only available if the XML extension was installed.

Examples

Example #1 Basic examples

<?php
// Convert the string 'Zoë' from UTF-8 to ISO 8859-1
$utf8_string = "\x5A\x6F\xC3\xAB";
$iso8859_1_string = utf8_decode($utf8_string);
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";

// Invalid UTF-8 sequences are replaced with '?'
$invalid_utf8_string = "\xC3";
$iso8859_1_string = utf8_decode($invalid_utf8_string);
var_dump($iso8859_1_string);

// Characters which don't exist in ISO 8859-1, such as
// '€' (Euro Sign) are also replaced with '?'
$utf8_string = "\xE2\x82\xAC";
$iso8859_1_string = utf8_decode($utf8_string);
var_dump($iso8859_1_string);
?>

The above example will output:

5a6feb
string(1) "?"
string(1) "?"

Notes

Note: Deprecation and alternatives

This function is deprecated as of PHP 8.2.0, and will be removed in a future version. Existing uses should be checked and replaced with appropriate alternatives.

Similar functionality can be achieved with mb_convert_encoding, which supports ISO-8859-1 and many other character encodings.
<?php
$utf8_string = "\xC3\xAB"; // 'ë' (e with diaeresis) in UTF-8
$iso8859_1_string = mb_convert_encoding($utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8');
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";

$utf8_string = "\xCE\xBB"; // 'λ' (Greek lower-case lambda) in UTF-8
$iso8859_7_string = mb_convert_encoding($utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-7', 'UTF-8');
echo bin2hex($iso8859_7_string), "\n";

$utf8_string = "\xE2\x82\xAC"; // '€' (Euro sign) in UTF-8 (not present in ISO-8859-1)
$windows_1252_string = mb_convert_encoding($utf8_string, 'Windows-1252', 'UTF-8');
echo bin2hex($windows_1252_string), "\n";
?>
The above example will output:
eb
eb
80
Other options which may be available depending on the extensions installed are UConverter::transcode and iconv.

The following all give the same result:
<?php
$utf8_string = "\x5A\x6F\xC3\xAB"; // 'Zoë' in UTF-8
$iso8859_1_string = utf8_decode($utf8_string);
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";

$iso8859_1_string = mb_convert_encoding($utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8');
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";

$iso8859_1_string = iconv('UTF-8', 'ISO-8859-1', $utf8_string);
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";

$iso8859_1_string = UConverter::transcode($utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-1', 'UTF8');
echo bin2hex($iso8859_1_string), "\n";
?>
The above example will output:
5a6feb
5a6feb
5a6feb
5a6feb
Specifying '?' as the 'to_subst' option to UConverter::transcode gives the same result as utf8_decode for strings which are invalid or which can not be represented in ISO 8859-1.
<?php
$utf8_string = "\xE2\x82\xAC"; // € (Euro Sign) does not exist in ISO 8859-1
$iso8859_1_string = UConverter::transcode(
    $utf8_string, 'ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8', ['to_subst' => '?']
);
var_dump($iso8859_1_string);
?>
The above example will output:
sring(1) "?"

utf8_decode