php man page for utf8_encode

UTF8_ENCODE(3)								 1							    UTF8_ENCODE(3)

utf8_encode - Encodes an ISO-8859-1 string to UTF-8

SYNOPSIS
       string utf8_encode (string  $data)

DESCRIPTION
	This  function	encodes  the  string  $data  to UTF-8, and returns the encoded version.  UTF-8 is a standard mechanism used by Unicode for
       encoding wide character values into a byte stream.  UTF-8 is transparent to plain ASCII characters, is  self-synchronized  (meaning  it	is
       possible  for a program to figure out where in the bytestream characters start) and can be used with normal string comparison functions for
       sorting and such. PHP encodes UTF-8 characters in up to four bytes, like this:

       UTF-8 encoding

       +------+-------------------------------------+---+
       |bytes | 				    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 	       bits		    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 	  representation	    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       +------+-------------------------------------+---+
       |  1   | 				    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 		 7		    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 	     0bbbbbbb		    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |  2   | 				    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 		11		    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 	 110bbbbb 10bbbbbb	    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |  3   | 				    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 		16		    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      |     1110bbbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb	    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |  4   | 				    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 		21		    |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       |      | 11110bbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb 10bbbbbb |	|
       |      | 				    |	|
       +------+-------------------------------------+---+
	Each b represents a bit that can be used to store character data.

PARAMETERS
	      o $data
		- An ISO-8859-1 string.

RETURN VALUES
	Returns the UTF-8 translation of $data.

SEE ALSO
       utf8_decode(3).

PHP Documentation Group 													    UTF8_ENCODE(3)