I have a string with "\u00a0", and I need to replace it with "" str_replace fails

Question

I need to clean a string that comes (copy/pasted) from various Microsoft Office suite applications (Excel, Access, and Word), each with its own set of encoding.

I'm using json_encode for debugging purposes in order to being able to see every single encoded character.

I'm able to clean everything I found so far (\r \n) with str_replace, but with \u00a0 I have no luck.

$string = 'mail@mail.com\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0;mail@mail.com'; //this is the output from json_encode

$clean = str_replace("\u00a0", "",$string);

returns:

mail@mail.com\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0;mail@mail.com

That is exactly the same; it completely ignores \u00a0.

Is there a way around this? Also, I'm feeling I'm reinventing the wheel, is there a function/class that completely strips EVERY possibile char of EVERY possible encoding?

____EDIT____

After the first two replies I need to clarify that my example DOES work, because it's the output from json_encode, not the actual string!

score 58 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 10 '13 at 08:42

58

By combining ord() with substr() on my string containing \u00a0, I found the following curse to work:

$text = str_replace( chr( 194 ) . chr( 160 ), ' ', $text );

edited Jul 10 '13 at 08:42

Lennart

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answered Jul 10 '13 at 08:15

Arne

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Thanks! that saved me a lot of time. `"\xc2\xa0"` works as well. – elipoultorak Aug 31 '15 at 11:32
yep worked for me. I am trying to scrap data from a site which has french text .. – Manikandan Arunachalam Apr 13 '16 at 16:02

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 27 '19 at 20:30

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Try this:

$str = str_replace("\u{00a0}", ' ', $str);

answered Dec 27 '19 at 20:30

Khoubeib Bouthour

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I think you misunderstood the question. – Dharman Dec 27 '19 at 23:18
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Thank you. That is the correct notation as per: https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.double when replacing the Unicode. OP's question was about literal `\u00a0` strings though, but this was what I was after – user3342816 Mar 21 '20 at 06:07
This is the unique that worked properly for me. – Gabriel Veiga Cardoso Jan 24 '22 at 23:53

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 07 '10 at 12:55

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Works for me, when I copy/paste your code. Try replacing the double quotes in your str_replace() with single quotes, or escaping the backslash ("\\u00a0").

answered Apr 07 '10 at 12:55

Annika Backstrom

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In your example it works because you are using the output from json_encode not the actual string! If I copy paste my code it works perfectly even for me. – 0plus1 Apr 07 '10 at 13:01
What happens if you replace `\xa0` rather than `\u00a0`? – Annika Backstrom Apr 07 '10 at 13:23
This happens. It does delete the instances of \u00a0 and when printed from json_encode it looks ok, however if i echo the string without json encode I get a � where before there was the \u00a0. At this point I can't understand what's going on.. please give me an explanation! :-) – 0plus1 Apr 07 '10 at 14:48
I found the solution, just assign the json_encode to a variable and then str_replace like there's no tomorrow. I would love to still understand the gimmick about \xa0 if you may.. – 0plus1 Apr 07 '10 at 15:02
That may be a null character… The escaped character `\u00a0` says "unicode character with hex value 00a0." My original suggestion would have only stripped out the a0 segment. Try replacing \x00a0 with a blank string. – Annika Backstrom Apr 07 '10 at 17:02

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 01 '14 at 03:16

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I just had the same problem. Apparently PHP's json_encode will return null for any string with a 'non-breaking space' in it.

The Solution is to replace this with a regular space:

str_replace(chr(160),' ');

I hope this helps somebody - it took me an hour to figure out.

edited Oct 01 '14 at 03:16

Peter Mortensen

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answered Nov 20 '12 at 08:57

jeremyj11

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score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 18 '14 at 11:59

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This one also works, i found somewhere

$str = trim($str, chr(0xC2).chr(0xA0));

answered Dec 18 '14 at 11:59

www.amitpatil.me

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What the hell! This is the only answer that worked in my case. Care to explain the solution? – hunter Oct 08 '20 at 14:00
Don't remember it now :P – www.amitpatil.me Oct 09 '20 at 04:38

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 12 '12 at 20:31

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A minor point: \u00a0 is actually a non-breaking space character, c.f. http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/a0/index.htm

So it might be more correct to replace it with " "

answered Nov 12 '12 at 20:31

Daniel Winterstein

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 26 '16 at 22:24

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This did the trick for me:

$str = preg_replace( "~\x{00a0}~siu", " ", $str );

answered Apr 26 '16 at 22:24

patrick

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score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Oct 01 '14 at 03:16

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You have to do this with single quotes like this:

str_replace('\u00a0', "",$string);

Or, if you like to use double quotes, you have to escape the backslash - which would look like this:

str_replace("\\u00a0", "",$string);

edited Oct 01 '14 at 03:16

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 07 '10 at 12:57

oezi

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I ran into this problem as well. Here is the solution that worked for me. I copied a string with the known \u00a0 character into my editor, then copied the 'space' that \u00a0 represents and pasted it into the str_replace function. In the end it looks like this: str_replace(" ","",$string). The space in the first parameter is the non-standard \u00a0. Now run it through json_encode. – Nick Johnson Feb 20 '12 at 16:36

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 27 '22 at 23:46

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You can use json_encode($string, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE |JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

answered Apr 27 '22 at 23:46

Mana S

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I have a string with "\u00a0", and I need to replace it with "" str_replace fails

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