PHP str_split on string with decoded html_entity - php

Question

If I run this code:
<?php
$string = 'My string ‘to parse’';
$string_decoded = html_entity_decode($string, ENT_QUOTES, 'utf-8');
$string_array = str_split($string_decoded);
var_dump($string_array);
?>
I get this result:
array (size=28)
0 => string 'M' (length=1)
1 => string 'y' (length=1)
2 => string ' ' (length=1)
3 => string 's' (length=1)
4 => string 't' (length=1)
5 => string 'r' (length=1)
6 => string 'i' (length=1)
7 => string 'n' (length=1)
8 => string 'g' (length=1)
9 => string ' ' (length=1)
10 => string '�' (length=1)
11 => string '�' (length=1)
12 => string '�' (length=1)
13 => string 't' (length=1)
14 => string 'o' (length=1)
15 => string ' ' (length=1)
16 => string 'p' (length=1)
17 => string 'a' (length=1)
18 => string 'r' (length=1)
19 => string 's' (length=1)
20 => string 'e' (length=1)
21 => string '�' (length=1)
22 => string '�' (length=1)
23 => string '�' (length=1)
As you can see, instead of the decoded single quotes (left/right), I'm getting these three characters for each quote...
I noticed that this happens with some entities, but not others. A few that present this issue are ‘ ” $copy;. Some that don't present the same problem are & $gt;.
I tried different charsets but couldn't find one that would work for all.
What am I doing wrong? Is there a way to make it work for all entities? Or at least all the "common" ones?
Thanks.

Answer 1

This should do well:
function mb_str_split($string) {
return preg_split('/(?<!^)(?!$)/u', $string );
}
$string = 'My string ‘to parse’';
$string = utf8_encode($string);
$string_decoded = html_entity_decode($string, ENT_QUOTES, 'utf-8');
$string_array = mb_str_split($string_decoded);
var_dump($string_array);
As mentioned in comments: you need to split the string with mb_split or by regex.
Proof: https://3v4l.org/3FRmG