utf8_encode Encodes an ISO-8859-1 string to UTF-8 &reftitle.description; stringutf8_encode stringdata This function encodes the string data to UTF-8, and returns the encoded version. UTF-8 is a standard mechanism used by Unicode for encoding wide character values into a byte stream. UTF-8 is transparent to plain ASCII characters, is self-synchronized (meaning it is possible for a program to figure out where in the bytestream characters start) and can be used with normal string comparison functions for sorting and such. PHP encodes UTF-8 characters in up to four bytes, like this: bytes bits representation 1 7 0bbbbbbb 2 11 110bbbbb 10bbbbbb 3 16 1110bbbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb 4 21 11110bbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb Each b represents a bit that can be used to store character data. &reftitle.parameters; data An ISO-8859-1 string. &reftitle.returnvalues; Returns the UTF-8 translation of data.