search arabic letters in arabic words
arabic, html, php, search
Solution
You need to use Multibyte String Functions.
You can also set `mbstring.func_overload = 7` in your `php.ini`, and php will automatically use multibyte counterparts for standard string functions.
Look at mbstring overloading documentation if you want to use some other value for overloaded functions which would suit your needs better
Also, replace
`$characters = str_split($char_string);`
with
`$characters = preg_split('//u', $char_string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);`
because `str_split` is not multibyte safe and has no alternative
Additionaly, if no encoding is sent in the headers after you submit the form, or there is some issue with them, you can set in your php.ini
`default_charset = "UTF-8"`
Problem
Here is my working code: ``` <!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv='Content-Type' content='text/html; charset=UTF-8'/> </head> <body> <?php $arabic = "صحيفة اسبوعية مستقلة شاملة تتابع الاخبار فى المنطقة العربية"; $french = "que voulez vous dire?"; if (isset($_POST['search'])) { $search = $_POST['search']; $key = $_POST['key']; $td = substr_count($arabic, $key); echo $td; } echo "<br />" . $arabic; function count_occurences($char_string, $haystack, $case_sensitive = true) { if ($case_sensitive === false) { $char_string = strtolower($char_string); $haystack = strtolower($haystack); } $characters = preg_split('//u', $char_string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY); //$characters = str_split($char_string); $character_count = 0; foreach ($characters as $character) { $character_count = $character_count + substr_count($haystack, $character); } return $character_count; } ?> <form name="input" action="" method="post"> <input type= "text" name="key" value=""/> <input type ="submit" name="search" value =" find it !"/> </form> </body> </html> ``` For the `$french` it works good, however with `$arabic` it doesn't. Of course there is no error but if I enter for example `ح` to search for that letter, it shows always `0` for every letter I enter. Is there some wrong? Or am I missing something with Arabic? I don't know why in `$french` works good if i enter `v` it shows `2` in result.