Decoding String from UTF-8 to Windows1256 - php

Question

I have the code below, which tries to convert a string from UTF to CP1256. I want to decode the string to arabic, and the page encryption is fixed to UTF8
<?php
$string = "ãÍãÏ Úæäí ãÍãæÏ Úáí";
$string = iconv("UTF-8//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", "Windows-1252//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", $string);
echo $string;
?>

Answer 1

So your Arabic text, has been encoded in Windows-1256 and then incorrectly encoded to Windows-1252.
If your source file is UTF-8 encoded, the answer is:
<?php
$string = "ãÍãÏ Úæäí ãÍãæÏ Úáí";
$string = iconv("UTF-8//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", "Windows-1252//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", $string);
# $string is now back to its 1256 encoding. Encode to UTF-8 for web page
$string = iconv("Windows-1256//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", "UTF-8//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", $string);
echo $string;
?>
If your source file is "windows-1252" encoded, then you must use:
<?php
$string = "ãÍãÏ Úæäí ãÍãæÏ Úáí";
# Interperate windows-1252 string as if it were windows-1256. Encode to UTF-8 for web page
$string = iconv("Windows-1256//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", "UTF-8//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", $string);
echo $string;
?>
If you $string actually comes from a database or file, then you have to determine the encoding of the source before applying any conversion.

Answer 2

$strings = "ãÍãÏ Úæäí ãÍãæÏ Úáí";
setlocale(LC_CTYPE, 'nl_NL.UTF-8');
$convert = iconv('UTF-8', 'windows-1251//TRANSLIT//IGNORE', $strings);
echo var_dump($convert);