PHP Convert Windows-1256 encoded text to UTF-8 - php

Question

I am getting Windows-1256 encoded text from the web and nee to convert it to utf-8.
I tried using mb_convert_encoding and iconv but they don't seem to work.
none of them seem to be capable of handling windows-1256.
How to do it?
Edit: More details about the errors.
When trying
mb_convert_encoding($text,"utf-8", "windows-1256");
I get
Message: mb_convert_encoding() [function.mb-convert-encoding]: Illegal character encoding specified
And when i try
iconv("windows-1256", "utf-8", $text);
I get no errors but it returns an empty string

Answer 1

Trying
echo iconv('WINDOWS-1256', 'UTF-8', 'testÍÊ');
...on http://writecodeonline.com/php/ seems to work correctly (produces testأچأٹ)

Answer 2

Try this, should work:
iconv("windows-1256", "utf-8//TRANSLIT//IGNORE", $text)

Answer 3

Check this:
http://rayed.com/wordpress/wp-content/upload/lib.utf2win.php.txt
Apparently he also had some problems, because he wrote this script, if you can reverse that, it might work.
I reversed it for you, try that:
$f[]="\xc2\xac"; $t[]="\x80";
$f[]="\xd9\xbe"; $t[]="\x81";
$f[]="\xc0\x9a"; $t[]="\x82";
$f[]="\xc6\x92"; $t[]="\x83";
$f[]="\xc0\x9e"; $t[]="\x84";
$f[]="\xc0\xa6"; $t[]="\x85";
$f[]="\xc0\xa0"; $t[]="\x86";
$f[]="\xc0\xa1"; $t[]="\x87";
$f[]="\xcb\x86"; $t[]="\x88";
$f[]="\xc0\xb0"; $t[]="\x89";
$f[]="\xd9\xb9"; $t[]="\x8a";
$f[]="\xc0\xb9"; $t[]="\x8b";
$f[]="\xc5\x92"; $t[]="\x8c";
$f[]="\xda\x86"; $t[]="\x8d";
$f[]="\xda\x98"; $t[]="\x8e";
$f[]="\xda\x88"; $t[]="\x8f";
$f[]="\xda\xaf"; $t[]="\x90";
$f[]="\xc0\x98"; $t[]="\x91";
$f[]="\xc0\x99"; $t[]="\x92";
$f[]="\xc0\x9c"; $t[]="\x93";
$f[]="\xc0\x9d"; $t[]="\x94";
$f[]="\xc0\xa2"; $t[]="\x95";
$f[]="\xc0\x93"; $t[]="\x96";
$f[]="\xc0\x94"; $t[]="\x97";
$f[]="\xda\xa9"; $t[]="\x98";
$f[]="\xc4\xa2"; $t[]="\x99";
$f[]="\xda\x91"; $t[]="\x9a";
$f[]="\xc0\xba"; $t[]="\x9b";
$f[]="\xc5\x93"; $t[]="\x9c";
$f[]="\xc0\x8c"; $t[]="\x9d";
$f[]="\xc0\x8d"; $t[]="\x9e";
$f[]="\xda\xba"; $t[]="\x9f";
$f[]="\xd8\x8c"; $t[]="\xa1";
$f[]="\xda\xbe"; $t[]="\xaa";
$f[]="\xd8\x9b"; $t[]="\xba";
$f[]="\xd8\x9f"; $t[]="\xbf";
$f[]="\xdb\x81"; $t[]="\xc0";
$f[]="\xd8\xa1"; $t[]="\xc1";
$f[]="\xd8\xa2"; $t[]="\xc2";
$f[]="\xd8\xa3"; $t[]="\xc3";
$f[]="\xd8\xa4"; $t[]="\xc4";
$f[]="\xd8\xa5"; $t[]="\xc5";
$f[]="\xd8\xa6"; $t[]="\xc6";
$f[]="\xd8\xa7"; $t[]="\xc7";
$f[]="\xd8\xa8"; $t[]="\xc8";
$f[]="\xd8\xa9"; $t[]="\xc9";
$f[]="\xd8\xaa"; $t[]="\xca";
$f[]="\xd8\xab"; $t[]="\xcb";
$f[]="\xd8\xac"; $t[]="\xcc";
$f[]="\xd8\xad"; $t[]="\xcd";
$f[]="\xd8\xae"; $t[]="\xce";
$f[]="\xd8\xaf"; $t[]="\xcf";
$f[]="\xd8\xb0"; $t[]="\xd0";
$f[]="\xd8\xb1"; $t[]="\xd1";
$f[]="\xd8\xb2"; $t[]="\xd2";
$f[]="\xd8\xb3"; $t[]="\xd3";
$f[]="\xd8\xb4"; $t[]="\xd4";
$f[]="\xd8\xb5"; $t[]="\xd5";
$f[]="\xd8\xb6"; $t[]="\xd6";
$f[]="\xd8\xb7"; $t[]="\xd8";
$f[]="\xd8\xb8"; $t[]="\xd9";
$f[]="\xd8\xb9"; $t[]="\xda";
$f[]="\xd8\xba"; $t[]="\xdb";
$f[]="\xd9\x80"; $t[]="\xdc";
$f[]="\xd9\x81"; $t[]="\xdd";
$f[]="\xd9\x82"; $t[]="\xde";
$f[]="\xd9\x83"; $t[]="\xdf";
$f[]="\xd9\x84"; $t[]="\xe1";
$f[]="\xd9\x85"; $t[]="\xe3";
$f[]="\xd9\x86"; $t[]="\xe4";
$f[]="\xd9\x87"; $t[]="\xe5";
$f[]="\xd9\x88"; $t[]="\xe6";
$f[]="\xd9\x89"; $t[]="\xec";
$f[]="\xd9\x8a"; $t[]="\xed";
$f[]="\xd9\x8b"; $t[]="\xf0";
$f[]="\xd9\x8c"; $t[]="\xf1";
$f[]="\xd9\x8d"; $t[]="\xf2";
$f[]="\xd9\x8e"; $t[]="\xf3";
$f[]="\xd9\x8f"; $t[]="\xf5";
$f[]="\xd9\x90"; $t[]="\xf6";
$f[]="\xd9\x91"; $t[]="\xf8";
$f[]="\xd9\x92"; $t[]="\xfa";
$f[]="\xc0\x8e"; $t[]="\xfd";
$f[]="\xc0\x8f"; $t[]="\xfe";
$f[]="\xdb\x92"; $t[]="\xff";
function win_to_utf8($str) {
global $f, $t;
return str_replace($t, $f, $str);
}