In what situations is it recommended to use functions like utf8_decode and html_entity_decode in PHP scripts for text manipulation?

When dealing with text manipulation in PHP, it is recommended to use functions like utf8_decode and html_entity_decode when you need to convert UTF-8 encoded strings to ISO-8859-1 or decode HTML entities back to their original characters. This is particularly useful when working with text that has been encoded for web display or when handling data from external sources that may contain encoded characters. 

// Example of using utf8_decode and html_entity_decode functions in PHP
$text = "This is a UTF-8 encoded string & it needs to be decoded.";
$decoded_text = utf8_decode(html_entity_decode($text));

echo $decoded_text;

Keywords

utf8_decode html_entity_decode PHP scripts text manipulation situations

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