Help- My code fails to convert new quotes (“foo”) to old quotes ("foo")

[rwmaho]

The fancy-looking quotes won't insert into my DB, so I'm trying to convert them to %93 & %94 or normal quotes. 

 

Nothing I've tried works.

 

Code:

 

$fancy=" “test” ";
$fixed=htmlentities($old, ENT_QUOTES);

 

echo "fancy: $fancy<br>";

echo "fixed: $fixed";

Results:

fancy: “test”
fixed:

 

I want $fixed to be %93test%94, or even "test" would work. 

Edited October 18, 2014 by rwmaho

[codefossa]

Does mysql_real_escape_string() work?  Also, make sure the colation (not sure if I spelt that right) supports it.  general_utf8 should be good.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Xaotique

[rwmaho]

>  Does mysql_real_escape_string() work?

 

It didn't help.

 

> general_utf8 should be good

 

My database's collation is "general_utf8_ci"

Edited October 18, 2014 by rwmaho

[maxxd]

I ran into a similar situation at one of my jobs a while back. Neither htmlentities() nor htmlspecialchars() with ENT_QUOTES would correctly handle fancy quotes. I think I ended up using str_replace() for opening and closing fancy quotes, opening and closing fancy single quotes, and something else that won't quite come to mind right now.

Edited October 18, 2014 by maxxd

[rwmaho]

Thanks.  Yes, str_replace does work. 

 

Working Code:

$fancy=" “test” ";
$fixed=str_replace("“","%93","$fancy");
$fixed2=str_replace("”","%94","$fixed");

echo "fancy: $fancy<br>";
echo "fixed: $fixed2";

 

Results:

 

fancy: “test”
fixed: %93test%94

[maxxd]

It's brute force, but glad it worked for you.