Converting special characters to generic equivalents (PHP)

Question

Is there an efficient way to convert special entities (such as &mdash) to its logical generic equivalent (such as -)? The manual states that I can convert the actual character to its html entity, but this is going in the opposite direction. It's important to be able to switch out the entity for something generic. Another example.. &rdquo would become a simple " in this so far fictitious function.

Helpz?

Answer 1

Use iconv and turn transliteration on.

$text = "—”";
echo iconv("UTF-8", "ASCII//TRANSLIT", $text), PHP_EOL;

Answer 2

Why won't html_entity_decode do what you want?