Why is str_replace() only replacing one instance of a character in a string?

Question

I have a large string variable that is assigned from a database column of type " Text" with Collation latin_swedish_ci.

Because it is in ASCII, I need to replace all non UTF-8 characters before I can put variable into my PDF generation script.

As we all know, the standards used by PDF are evil. If I use plain ASCII input it will go insane and cause a rip in space-time.

So in order to prevent anymore damage to our universe, I need help figuring out why this str_replace() function is only replacing one of a character type and ignoring any repeats of this character

Here is my code:

$tc = str_replace (array("\n", "£", "&"), array("<br/>", "&pound;", "&amp;"), $tc);

Input:

Terms & Conditions: Mandatory charge of £10 for cancellations.    
VAT E&EO

Output:

Terms & Conditions: Mandatory charge of £10 for cancellations.
VAT E&EO

As you can see in the output on the second line the str_replace() does not change the ampersand character.

I wonder if this is because its over two lines or something like that.

So any idea how to get the function to work as I want it to, otherwise well your going to wake up with many Micro Blackholes vanishing your bowl of cereal tomorrow.

Answer 1

It looks like what you are trying to achieve could be done using these 2 functions:

nl2br(htmlentities($tc));

The benefit being that if your $tc variables gets any more HTML entities in the future, you won't have to fiddle with your str_replace() .