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# LVII. iconv Functions

# Introduction

This module contains an interface to iconv character set conversion facility. With this module, you can turn a string represented by a local character set into the one represented by another character set, which may be the Unicode character set. Supported character sets depend on the iconv implementation of your system. Note that the iconv function on some systems may not work as you expect. In such case, it'd be a good idea to install the GNU libiconv library. It will most likely end up with more consistent results.

Since PHP 5.0.0, this extension comes with various utility functions that help you to write multilingual scripts. Let's have a look at the following sections to explore the new features.

# Requirements

You will need nothing if the system you are using is one of the recent POSIX-compliant systems because standard C libraries that are supplied in them must provide iconv facility. Otherwise, you have to get the libiconv library installed in your system.

# Installation

To use functions provided by this module, the PHP binary must be built with the following configure line: --with-iconv[=DIR].

> Note to Windows® Users: In order to enable this module on a Windows® environment, you need to put a DLL file named iconv.dll or iconv-1.3.dll (prior to 4.2.1) which is bundled with the PHP/Win32 binary package into a directory specified by the PATH environment variable or one of the system directories of your Windows® installation.

> This module is part of PHP as of PHP 5 thus iconv.dll and php_iconv.dll is not needed anymore.

# Runtime Configuration

The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in `php.ini`.

Table 1. Iconv configuration options

Name | Default | Changeable | Changelog
--- | --- | --- | ---
iconv.input_encoding | "ISO-8859-1" | PHP_INI_ALL | Available since PHP 4.0.5.
iconv.output_encoding | "ISO-8859-1" | PHP_INI_ALL | Available since PHP 4.0.5.
iconv.internal_encoding | "ISO-8859-1" | PHP_INI_ALL | Available since PHP 4.0.5.

For further details and definitions of the PHP_INI_* constants, see the Appendix G.

Warning
Some systems (like IBM AIX) use "ISO8859-1" instead of "ISO-8859-1" so this value has to be used in configuration options and function parameters.

> Note: Configuration option iconv.input_encoding is currently not used for anything.

# Resource Types

This extension has no resource types defined.

# Predefined Constants

Since PHP 4.3.0 it is possible to identify at runtime which iconv implementation is adopted by this extension.

Table 2. iconv constants

Name | Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
ICONV_IMPL | string | The implementation name
ICONV_VERSION | string | The implementation version

> Note: Writing implementation-dependent scripts with these constants is strongly discouraged.

Since PHP 5.0.0, the following constants are also available:

Table 3. iconv constants available since PHP 5.0.0

Name | Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
ICONV_MIME_DECODE_STRICT | integer | A bitmask used for iconv_mime_decode()
ICONV_MIME_DECODE_CONTINUE_ON_ERROR | integer | A bitmask used for iconv_mime_decode()

# See Also

See also GNU Recode functions.

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