PHP: How to convert ISO character (HTMLEntities) to UTF-8?

I’m facing problem in how to convert string from ISO to UTF8 previously. Due to the server configuration problem, all the UTF-8 char has been convereted into ISO (HTMLEntities) before it insert into db and those ISO character (HTMLEntities) break while showing in XML document. Now i found the solution to convert ISO character into UTF-8.

The original utf-8 chinese words: “你好”.
Converted to ISO (HTMLEntities) : “你好”

For you to convert the ISO string “你好” to become utf-8 chinese words: “你好”, you need to use Multibyte String function (or mbstring extension). Example below uses mb_convert_encoding function to convert ISO (HTMLEntities) characters to UTF-8:-

Output will be 你好.

*** To find out if the conversion from ISO to utf-8 is working, you need to view source (view the html source code) to check if the character is in UTF-8 format. (do not trust what your browser shows you!) ***

This example need u to have mbstring extension installed. By default, mbstring extension is not installed. If you do not have mbstring installed you wont be able to convert the ISO string to UTF-8 using the method i show here. You may need to contact your server administrator to install mbstring extension.

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