how to convert characters to HTML entities with PHP Function Script Code

ok, so today i wanted to change a character into special html characters. some examples are when users enter their name is a foreign language other than english. some characters have accents and some search engines don't like that and some validation tools show as error:

so lets say for example i have this name:
El Niño

what you see is looks like El Niño right, well, that's how the browser shows it to you, but if you look at this page HTML code, you will see that it looks something like this:



well, how do you do it. PHP is great for this.

if you dont have PHP yet on your website, i recommend you use our friends at www.webune.com, they have great service in hosting packages.

so if you have PHP, lets continue.. lets follow the example with this name so to display it properly i would use the htmlentities() function and this how my script would look like:

CODE:


OUTPUT:



HTML CODE:


hope this helps..
Description
string htmlentities ( string $string [, int $quote_style [, string $charset]] )
This function is identical to htmlspecialchars() in all ways, except with htmlentities(), all characters which have HTML character entity equivalents are translated into these entities.
Like htmlspecialchars(), the optional second quote_style parameter lets you define what will be done with 'single' and "double" quotes. It takes on one of three constants with the default being ENT_COMPAT:

if you want more information visit php.net at:
http://us.php.net/htmlentities