idn_to_ascii

(PHP 5 >= 5.3.0, PECL intl >= 1.0.2, PECL idn >= 0.1)

idn_to_ascii — Convert domain name to IDNA ASCII form.

Description

Procedural style

string idn_to_ascii ( string $domain [, int $options = 0 [, int $variant = INTL_IDNA_VARIANT_2003 [, array &$idna_info ]]] )

This function converts Unicode domain name to IDNA ASCII-compatible format.

Parameters

domain: Domain to convert. In PHP 5 must be UTF-8 encoded.
options: Conversion options - combination of IDNA_* constants (except IDNA_ERROR_* constants).
variant: Either INTL_IDNA_VARIANT_2003 for IDNA 2003 or INTL_IDNA_VARIANT_UTS46 for UTS #46.
idna_info: This parameter can be used only if INTL_IDNA_VARIANT_UTS46 was used for variant. In that case, it will be filled with an array with the keys 'result', the possibly illegal result of the transformation, 'isTransitionalDifferent', a boolean indicating whether the usage of the transitional mechanisms of UTS #46 either has or would have changed the result and 'errors', which is an int representing a bitset of the error constants IDNA_ERROR_*.

Return Values

Domain name encoded in ASCII-compatible form. or FALSE on failure

Changelog

Version	Description
5.4.0/PECL 2.0.0b1	Added the parameters `variant` and `idna_info`; UTS #46 support.

Examples

Example #1 idn_to_ascii() example


<?php

echo idn_to_ascii('täst.de'); 

?>

The above example will output:

xn--tst-qla.de


The notes on this function are not very clear and a little misleading.





Firstly, <=5.3, you will need to make use of one of several scripts or classes available on the internet which might, or might not, require the installation of of the intl and idn PECL extensions ...and you will need to have !<4.0 in order to be able to install both.





Secondly, if you have >=5.4 you will not require the PECL extensions.





Third, use of utf8_encode() is not necessary.  In fact, it will potentially prevent idn_to_ascii() from working at all.





On my setup it was necessary to change the charset in the script meta tags to UTF-8:





<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />





...and to change charset_default in the php.ini file (/usr/local/lib/php.ini, whereis php.ini, find / -name php.ini):





default_charset = "UTF-8"





The above changes mean that idn_to_ascii() can now be used with that syntax (no need for utf8_encode()).  Previously, the function worked to convert some IDNs, but failed to convert Japanese and Cyrillic IDNs.  Further, no additional locales were enabled or added, and Apache's charset file was left unmodified.





It is also important to remember only to apply the function where required, eg:





idn_to_ascii(cåsino.com) // is wrong





...whereas...





iden_to_ascii(cåsino) // is right





...and also be aware of text editors that don't support UTF-8 encoding, or the $domain = 'cåsino' value will end up as $domain = '??????' ...and the function will fail.





I have found that Notepad++ easily and reliably handles UTF-8 encoding that works for this function using UTF-8 as the encoding option, not UTF-8 without BOM.

down

Eman ¶

2 years ago


With PHP 5.3 I started to recieve 



Fatal error: Only variables can be passed by reference 



when trying to call idn_to_ascii with second optional parameter (IDNA_DEFAULT). 

Moreover these IDNA_* constants are seem to be undefined in PHP 5.3. + PECL idn 0.0.2



When I tried to uninstall PECL idn and install PECL intl (1.1.1) i recieved this:



/tmp/pear/temp/intl/collator/collator_class.c:92: error: duplicate ‘static’

/tmp/pear/temp/intl/collator/collator_class.c:96: error: duplicate ‘static’

/tmp/pear/temp/intl/collator/collator_class.c:101: error: duplicate ‘static’

/tmp/pear/temp/intl/collator/collator_class.c:107: error: duplicate ‘static’

make: *** [collator/collator_class.lo] Error 1



So probably compiling PHP 5.3. from sources with --enable-intl will help, but it only means that PHP 5.3. intl version differs from the one available at PECL, which isn't good, I think.



I've made my code working again by giving second idn_to_ascii parameter as simple integer variable (with value 0), but something bad is going on here and i will not be surprised if it'll break again after another PHP update...

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