Opening an encoded file with PHP - php

Question

I am opening a file on the server with PHP. The file seems ordinary. It opens in Notepad and Textedit on a PC. Even PHP can display it without any issue in a web browser when we echo out.
But when I try searching it with strpos() it can’t find anything except single characters. if i search for a string with 2 or more characters, it doesn’t find anything.
I have tried encoding it to UTF-8, and it detects it as ASCII. so everything seems right there.
I have also isolated the part of the file that I am trying to read down to only 250 characters. They all look fine on the screen.
But strpos can’t find it. I’ve run tests on every part of my code and I believe everything is fine with my code. The problem I believe derives from that the characters I see on the screen are not exactly matching what those characters really are.
My last resort is to write a function which converts each character into an integer array (if that’s even possible), and then convert all that back to a string. This way, we’ll know 100% that the characters we see are real.
Hoping that somebody has a better approach or perhaps an idea for something I missed?
I'll post the code below:
$content = file_get_contents($file->getPathname()); // get the file contents
$content = substr($content, 30, 300); // reduce the large file to just the first few lines
$content = htmlspecialchars($content); // try to remove any special characters from the file
$content = iconv('ASCII', 'UTF-8//IGNORE', $content); // encode to a friendly format
$string = "JobName"; // this is the string i'm searching for
if (strpos($content, $string) !== false) {
echo "bingo";
}
else {
echo " not found ";
}
Just to be clear, the file I'm opening is generated from a PC program that stores its data in .DAT format. Like I said, I can see and read the content very easily using any program, including PHP. but when I try to search, its as if it doesn't recognize the content at all.
I am not aware of how to upload a file on StackOverflow, but if someone can tell me how to do it then I will gladly post the file itself.

Answer 1

Thank you very much for your help ARKASCHA. I was able to find an online HexEditor and when I saw the characters, it seems there is a NUL character between every single character in this file. that's probably why I couldn't see it with a regular view. I just had to run an additional function to remove NUL characters from the file, and then it works as its supposed. Thanks again.