I am trying to replace this character http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2014/index.htm with a regular dash , this is what i have yet i cant seem to get it to work?
$dataold = "9am – 5pm"; // from a ms word doc
$data = mb_ereg_replace("[\xE2 \x80 \x94]", " - ", $dataold);
print_r($data);
Why bother with the octal unicode format? Why not...
Replace an N-Dash
$dataold = "9am – 5pm"; // from a ms word doc
$data = mb_ereg_replace(" – ", " - ", $dataold);
print_r($data);
Replace an M-Dash
$dataold = "9am — 5pm"; // from a ms word doc
$data = mb_ereg_replace(" — ", " - ", $dataold);
print_r($data);
Your original code works fine, except the sample text string has an N-dash and you're testing for an M-dash. (And you have extra spaces in your RegEx). Try this...
$dataold = "9am — 5pm"; // from a ms word doc
$data = mb_ereg_replace("[\xE2\x80\x94]", " - ", $dataold);
print_r($data);
Try this:
$dataold = "9am – 5pm"; // from a ms word doc
$data = mb_ereg_replace("/ \\x{2014} /u", " - ", $dataold);
print_r($data);
I got it working but — character copied directly from the page you pasted (copying from your code didn't work).
<?php
$dataold = "9am — 5pm"; // from a ms word doc
$data = mb_ereg_replace("\x{2014}", "dash", $dataold);
print_r($data); // output = 9am dash 5pm
Demo: https://3v4l.org/9Lkpr