How to structure php if statement to check for smartquote [closed] - php

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In a db returned record, the var $bookTitle either starts with a smartquote or does not. If the first character is a smartquote, I want to display the record as-is. If the first character is anything else (letter or number), I want the concatenated string to be italicized. I've tried a couple different ways to structure the == '"' without success. The current version is italicized, no matter what is returned (NOTE: the code pasted here won't correctly depict smartquotes).
EDIT: The only part of the statement not working is the ($titleFormat == '"').
EDIT: I discovered that running echo $titleFormat returns a black diamond with a question mark.
<?php
$titleFormat = $bookTitle[0];
if ($titleFormat == '"') {
echo $Parsedown->text($bookTitle . ' ' . $bookSubtitle);
}
else { ?>
<em><?php echo $Parsedown->text($bookTitle . ' ' . $bookSubtitle); ?></em>
<?php
} ?>

Answer 1

Have you tried checking with regex...
if ( preg_match( '/^"|^“/', $bookTitle ) ) {
echo $Parsedown->text( $bookTitle . ' ' . $bookSubtitle );
} else {
printf( '<em>%s</em>', $Parsedown->text( $bookTitle . ' ' . $bookSubtitle ) );
}
Have you also considered that the db result might be encoded, for example: "?
Could it be that the character isn't actually " but “ instead? I've updated the regex above.