Convert Special Characters to ASCII with Laravel's Str::transliterate Method

Laravel's Str::transliterate method provides a simple solution for normalizing text content by converting special characters to their ASCII equivalents.

Convert special characters to ASCII:

use Illuminate\Support\Str;
 
$content = Str::transliterate('Café Ñoño & Résumé');
// Result: 'Cafe Nono & Resume'

Here's how you might use it in a content processing service:

class ContentProcessor
{
    public function processFormData(array $data)
    {
        return collect($data)->map(function ($value) {
            return is_string($value)
                ? Str::transliterate($value)
                : $value;
        })->all();
    }
 
    public function createSlug(string $title)
    {
        return Str::slug(Str::transliterate($title));
    }
 
    public function normalizeSearchQuery(string $query)
    {
        return strtolower(Str::transliterate($query));
    }
 
    public function sanitizeKeywords(array $keywords)
    {
        return array_map(function ($keyword) {
            return Str::transliterate($keyword);
        }, $keywords);
    }
}
 
class ArticleController extends Controller
{
    public function create(Request $request, ContentProcessor $processor)
    {
        $processedData = $processor->processFormData([
            'title' => $request->title,
            'content' => $request->content,
            'keywords' => $request->keywords
        ]);
 
        Article::create($processedData);
    }
}

The transliterate method makes it easy to ensure consistent text formatting across your application.