CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqlinternationalization
Nunners
Nunners

Reputation: 17

PHP display strings starting with a letter and after

I'm dealing with a filtering system is currently making in PHP and I've hit a brick wall whilst trying to make a dictory to users.

I fetch a list of users from the database ordered by the last name which gives us a theoretical list like this :

[
  {
    "first name" : "Bob",
    "Last name"  : "Éthier"
  },
  {
    "first name" : "Paul",
    "Last name"  : "Foo"
  },
  {
    "first name" : "Alice",
    "Last name"  : "Smith"
  },
]

Now issues arrive when I'm trying to make a list of said users starting at a certain alphabet letter , "A,B,C,..."

If I were to do something such as 

if(strtoupper(substr($arr["Last name"], 0, 1)) >= $filterLetter)
   // Add account to display list to eventually show on page

What I would like to happen is that when I select the letter "F" as a filter, my list shows F and above, so basically it would start off with every other person with the letter F and eventually continue and also display Smith and so on.

What currently happens is that if the letter filter I select is above some accented character, the string compares part of the program bugs out and considers it good anyway and displays it.

Currently when I select F as my "start index", Bob Éthier shows even though it shouldn't and I'm honestly not sure why that happens. It seems to happen with every accented letter not only É.

Is there something I'm missing because I really feel like "É" > F should be false but in my case it's true.

Edit: My database system is:MySql and my charset is latin1 and collation is latin1_swedish_ci ( This might very well could be part of the issue), the characters do show properly on the page.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 204

Answers (2)

Steve Mulvihill
Steve Mulvihill

Reputation: 717

You can use iconv to remove the diacritics. Make sure to set the locale properly or iconv can return unexpected characters. The following should work:

setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_US.utf8");
$char = mb_substr($arr["Last name"], 0, 1, 'UTF-8');
$char = iconv('UTF-8','ASCII//TRANSLIT',$char);

Then use $char to compare against your index.

Edit: substr doesn't work with accented characters, using mb_substr and passing UTF-8 as encoding fixes the issue.

Upvotes: 2

Salvatore
Salvatore

Reputation: 1435

You can use the below-given function to convert your accented strings to normal strings and then continue with your necessary checks.

function removeAccents($str) {
  $a = array('À', 'Á', 'Â', 'Ã', 'Ä', 'Å', 'Æ', 'Ç', 'È', 'É', 'Ê', 'Ë', 'Ì', 'Í', 'Î', 'Ï', 'Ð', 'Ñ', 'Ò', 'Ó', 'Ô', 'Õ', 'Ö', 'Ø', 'Ù', 'Ú', 'Û', 'Ü', 'Ý', 'ß', 'à', 'á', 'â', 'ã', 'ä', 'å', 'æ', 'ç', 'è', 'é', 'ê', 'ë', 'ì', 'í', 'î', 'ï', 'ñ', 'ò', 'ó', 'ô', 'õ', 'ö', 'ø', 'ù', 'ú', 'û', 'ü', 'ý', 'ÿ', 'Ā', 'ā', 'Ă', 'ă', 'Ą', 'ą', 'Ć', 'ć', 'Ĉ', 'ĉ', 'Ċ', 'ċ', 'Č', 'č', 'Ď', 'ď', 'Đ', 'đ', 'Ē', 'ē', 'Ĕ', 'ĕ', 'Ė', 'ė', 'Ę', 'ę', 'Ě', 'ě', 'Ĝ', 'ĝ', 'Ğ', 'ğ', 'Ġ', 'ġ', 'Ģ', 'ģ', 'Ĥ', 'ĥ', 'Ħ', 'ħ', 'Ĩ', 'ĩ', 'Ī', 'ī', 'Ĭ', 'ĭ', 'Į', 'į', 'İ', 'ı', 'IJ', 'ij', 'Ĵ', 'ĵ', 'Ķ', 'ķ', 'Ĺ', 'ĺ', 'Ļ', 'ļ', 'Ľ', 'ľ', 'Ŀ', 'ŀ', 'Ł', 'ł', 'Ń', 'ń', 'Ņ', 'ņ', 'Ň', 'ň', 'ʼn', 'Ō', 'ō', 'Ŏ', 'ŏ', 'Ő', 'ő', 'Œ', 'œ', 'Ŕ', 'ŕ', 'Ŗ', 'ŗ', 'Ř', 'ř', 'Ś', 'ś', 'Ŝ', 'ŝ', 'Ş', 'ş', 'Š', 'š', 'Ţ', 'ţ', 'Ť', 'ť', 'Ŧ', 'ŧ', 'Ũ', 'ũ', 'Ū', 'ū', 'Ŭ', 'ŭ', 'Ů', 'ů', 'Ű', 'ű', 'Ų', 'ų', 'Ŵ', 'ŵ', 'Ŷ', 'ŷ', 'Ÿ', 'Ź', 'ź', 'Ż', 'ż', 'Ž', 'ž', 'ſ', 'ƒ', 'Ơ', 'ơ', 'Ư', 'ư', 'Ǎ', 'ǎ', 'Ǐ', 'ǐ', 'Ǒ', 'ǒ', 'Ǔ', 'ǔ', 'Ǖ', 'ǖ', 'Ǘ', 'ǘ', 'Ǚ', 'ǚ', 'Ǜ', 'ǜ', 'Ǻ', 'ǻ', 'Ǽ', 'ǽ', 'Ǿ', 'ǿ', 'Ά', 'ά', 'Έ', 'έ', 'Ό', 'ό', 'Ώ', 'ώ', 'Ί', 'ί', 'ϊ', 'ΐ', 'Ύ', 'ύ', 'ϋ', 'ΰ', 'Ή', 'ή');
  $b = array('A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'AE', 'C', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'D', 'N', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'Y', 's', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'ae', 'c', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'i', 'i', 'i', 'i', 'n', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'u', 'u', 'u', 'u', 'y', 'y', 'A', 'a', 'A', 'a', 'A', 'a', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'D', 'd', 'D', 'd', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'H', 'h', 'H', 'h', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'IJ', 'ij', 'J', 'j', 'K', 'k', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'l', 'l', 'N', 'n', 'N', 'n', 'N', 'n', 'n', 'O', 'o', 'O', 'o', 'O', 'o', 'OE', 'oe', 'R', 'r', 'R', 'r', 'R', 'r', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'T', 't', 'T', 't', 'T', 't', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'W', 'w', 'Y', 'y', 'Y', 'Z', 'z', 'Z', 'z', 'Z', 'z', 's', 'f', 'O', 'o', 'U', 'u', 'A', 'a', 'I', 'i', 'O', 'o', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'A', 'a', 'AE', 'ae', 'O', 'o', 'Α', 'α', 'Ε', 'ε', 'Ο', 'ο', 'Ω', 'ω', 'Ι', 'ι', 'ι', 'ι', 'Υ', 'υ', 'υ', 'υ', 'Η', 'η');
  return str_replace($a, $b, $str);
}

$str is your accented string and the result that the function will return will be an acceptable string stored in $normalString

$str = 'Chloé'
$normalString = removeAccents($str);

This way you shouldn't have an issue at all with accented characters.

Upvotes: 0

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