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How to use mb_get_info in PHP to handle file encoding

gitbox 2025-05-11

mbstring extension plays a key role in PHP projects that deal with multilingual text or need to ensure consistency in character encoding. The mb_get_info() function is a very practical tool. It allows you to quickly view the configuration information of the current mbstring and provide important reference for troubleshooting character encoding problems.

1. What is mb_get_info()?

mb_get_info() is a function provided by the mbstring extension in PHP to obtain the configuration information of the current multibyte string environment.

grammar:

 mb_get_info(string $type = null): array|string|false

  • $type : Optional parameter, specifying the type of information to be retrieved. If empty, all information is returned (returned as an associative array).

  • Return value: When $type is specified, a string is returned; if not specified, the associative array is returned.

Sample output:

 print_r(mb_get_info());

The output is similar to the following:

 Array
(
    [internal_encoding] => UTF-8
    [http_input] => pass
    [http_output] => pass
    [input_encoding] => UTF-8
    [output_encoding] => UTF-8
    [language] => neutral
    [encoding_translation] => Off
)

This means that the character encoding used by PHP in the current script is UTF-8.

2. How to use mb_get_info to check file encoding

Although mb_get_info() itself does not directly read the encoding of the file, we can use it in combination with other functions (such as mb_detect_encoding() ) to handle the encoding judgment and conversion of text files.

Step 1: Read the file content

 $content = file_get_contents('sample.txt');

Step 2: Detect the encoding type

 $encoding = mb_detect_encoding($content, mb_list_encodings(), true);
echo "Original encoding：$encoding\n";

Step 3: Convert to unified encoding if necessary (e.g. UTF-8)

 if ($encoding !== 'UTF-8') {
    $content = mb_convert_encoding($content, 'UTF-8', $encoding);
    file_put_contents('sample_utf8.txt', $content);
    echo "Converted to UTF-8 and save to a new file。\n";
}

Step 4: Use mb_get_info() to view the current settings

 print_r(mb_get_info());

3. Examples of application scenarios

Scene 1: Website content processing

When you are processing user comments or article content on multilingual websites such as https://gitbox.net/blog.php , you may receive input data with different encodings. With mb_get_info() and mb_detect_encoding() , you can ensure uniform encoding and avoid garbled code.

Scenario 2: Interface call data processing

Suppose you get data from an external API (such as https://api.gitbox.net/v1/data ). In order to ensure that it is displayed normally on the page, you need to detect the encoding first and then convert it.

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