PHP: How to get rid of strange characters like “\u00a0”?

Question

I got a messy bunch of JSON data to import into my database (for further purposes). When i checked them out (opened in a Text Editor), they contain so many weird (gibberish) characters like:

• \ 

For example, data.json :

[{"title":"hello world!","html_body":"<p>Hello\u00a0 from the\u00a0  other side.\u00a0 <\/p>"}]

And then, obviously, below code simply WON'T work:

$clean = str_replace("\u00a0", "", $string);

Despite whatever those character are for, how can i get rid of them anyway please?

Answer 1

Thanks for everyone in the comment section, who (at least) helped me to know those are non-breaking characters . I then googled and found a working solution by myself anyhow:

$clean_html_body = preg_replace('/\xc2\xa0/', '', $html_body);

Thanks again all. :)

Answer 2

If you have individual strings that might have non-breaking spaces or line returns at the end of them, you can trim these when putting together your JSON data by using this:

$dat = trim($dat," \\t\\n\\r\\0\\x0B\\xc2\\xa0");