utf8_encode not encoding/converting character

Question

I'm trying to use utf8_encode to display some accented characters (for purposes of putting them into a json), but for some reason it seems to fail and I don't understand why. Here's the test data I was running through a php tester:

    $data = '{"14446":"discreci\u00f3n","14450":"prudencia","14461":"experiencia","14491":"vida"}';
    $data = preg_replace('|u00([A-Fa-f0-9][A-Fa-f0-9])|', 'x{$1}', $data);
    echo $data;
    echo "\r\n\r\n";
    $data = preg_replace('/"\d*":/','',$data); 
    echo $data;
    echo "\r\n\r\n";
    $data = preg_replace('/[{}"?!]/','',$data);
    echo $data;
    echo "\r\n\r\n";
    $data_array = explode(",", $data); 
        
        foreach ($data_array as $data) {
            echo $data;
            echo "\r\n\r\n";
        }
        
    echo utf8_encode($data_array[0]);

    echo "\r\n\r\n";
    echo utf8_encode("discreci\xf3n");

Which output:

{"14446":"discreci\\x{f3}n","14450":"prudencia","14461":"experiencia","14491":"vida"}

{"discreci\\x{f3}n","prudencia","experiencia","vida"}

discreci\\xf3n,prudencia,experiencia,vida

discreci\\xf3n

prudencia

experiencia

vida

discreci\\xf3n

discreción

As you can see, it converts it if I enter it directly, but it doesn't convert it if it receives it as a variable, even if it's been surrounded with quotation marks eg.:

foreach ($data_array as $data) {
                $data = '"' . $data . '"';
                echo $data;
                echo "\r\n\r\n";
            }

doesn't convert it either.

So - what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

you create a string that contains \\xf3 these are all ASCII characters. if you want ó use stripcslashes to activate the embedded \\

 echo utf8_encode(stripcslashes($data_array[0]));

But on the other hand

foreach( json_decode($data,1) as $v )  echo $v ,"\n\n" ;

Works just fine on the original $data (before preg_replace), and supports all Unicode not just a subset.