Remove Accents from URLs

The function below can be used to remove accented characters from URLs. It converts the accented characters into non-accented ones. This function is useful because it doesn't itself include any accented characters, so it's easy to copy and paste and FTP. It only does lower case.

function ReplaceAccents ($s) {
	$a = array (
		chr(195).chr(167)=>'c', //c with cedilla
		chr(231)=>'c',
		chr(195).chr(166)=>'ae', //a and e next to each other
		chr(230)=>'ae',
		chr(197).chr(147)=>'oe', //o and e next to each other
		chr(195).chr(161)=>'a', //a acute (small slash from bottom left)
		chr(225)=>'a',
		chr(195).chr(169)=>'e', //e acute
		chr(233)=>'e',
		chr(195).chr(173)=>'i', //i acute
		chr(237)=>'i',
		chr(195).chr(179)=>'o', //o acute
		chr(243)=>'o',
		chr(195).chr(186)=>'u', //u acute
		chr(250)=>'u',
		chr(195).chr(160)=>'a', //a grave (small slash from top left)
		chr(224)=>'a',
		chr(195).chr(168)=>'e', //e grave
		chr(232)=>'e',
		chr(195).chr(172)=>'i', //i grave
		chr(236)=>'i',
		chr(195).chr(178)=>'o', //o grave
		chr(242)=>'o',
		chr(195).chr(185)=>'u', //u grave
		chr(249)=>'u',
		chr(195).chr(164)=>'a', //a umlaut (two dots)
		chr(228)=>'a',
		chr(195).chr(171)=>'e', //e umlaut
		chr(235)=>'e',
		chr(195).chr(175)=>'i', //i umlaut
		chr(239)=>'i',
		chr(195).chr(182)=>'o', //o umlaut
		chr(246)=>'o',
		chr(195).chr(188)=>'u', //u umlaut
		chr(252)=>'u',
		chr(195).chr(191)=>'y', //y umlaut
		chr(255)=>'u',
		chr(195).chr(162)=>'a', //a circumflex (a little hat)
		chr(226)=>'a',
		chr(195).chr(170)=>'e', //e circumflex
		chr(234)=>'e',
		chr(195).chr(174)=>'i', //i circumflex
		chr(238)=>'i',
		chr(195).chr(180)=>'o', //o circumflex
		chr(244)=>'o',
		chr(195).chr(187)=>'u', //u circumflex
		chr(251)=>'u',
		chr(195).chr(165)=>'a', //a with a small ring on top
		chr(229)=>'a',
		chr(101).chr(0)=>'e', //e
		chr(105).chr(0)=>'i', //i
		chr(195).chr(184)=>'o', //o with a slash through it
		chr(248)=>'o',
		chr(117).chr(0)=>'u', //u
	);
	return strtr ($s, $a);
}

And the RemoveHtmlEntities function below removes HTML entities from a string and GetStringAsUrl takes a string and returns it as something suitable for a URL. This is useful if you are using URL rewriting to turn a page title into the URL.

function RemoveHtmlEntities ($string) {
	//return html_entity_decode ($string); //new and different attempt
	$trans_tbl = get_html_translation_table (HTML_ENTITIES);
	$trans_tbl = array_flip ($trans_tbl);
	$trans_tbl[' '] = ' '; //make nbsp's into normal spaces
	$r = strtr ($string, $trans_tbl); //translate entities
	return preg_replace ("/&#(\d+);/e", "chr('\\1')", $r); //replace other numerical entities
}

function GetStringAsUrl ($s, $leave='/') {
	$s = ReplaceAccents (strtolower (RemoveHtmlEntities (strip_tags ($s)))); //remove tags, make lower case, replace accents
	$s = strtolower (strip_tags ($s)); //remove tags, make lower case, replace accents
	$s = preg_replace ("~[^\w\d$leave]~", "-", str_replace ("'", '', str_replace (" $leave ", $leave, $s))); //replace with -
	return preg_replace ('/^-+/', '', preg_replace ('/-+$/', '', preg_replace ("/[-_]+/", '-', $s))); //remove multiple -
}

For example, if you run this:

echo GetStringAsUrl ('/pages/Great stuff from the Pâtisserie (at low prices)');

You'll get this:

/pages/great-stuff-from-the-patisserie-at-low-prices