iconv_mime_encode

    (PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    iconv_mime_encode — Composes a MIME header field

    Description

    iconv_mime_encode(string $field_name, string $field_value, array $options = []): string|false

    Composes and returns a string that represents a valid MIME header field, which looks like the following: 

    Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Pr=FCfung_f=FCr?= Entwerfen von einer MIME kopfzeile
    In the above example, "Subject" is the field name and the portion that begins with "=?ISO-8859-1?..." is the field value.

    Parameters

    field_name

    The field name.

    field_value

    The field value.

    options

    You can control the behaviour of iconv_mime_encode() by specifying an associative array that contains configuration items to the optional third parameter options. The items supported by iconv_mime_encode() are listed below. Note that item names are treated case-sensitive.

    Configuration items supported by iconv_mime_encode()
    Item Type Description Default value Example
    scheme string Specifies the method to encode a field value by. The value of this item may be either "B" or "Q", where "B" stands for base64 encoding scheme and "Q" stands for quoted-printable encoding scheme. B B
    input-charset string Specifies the character set in which the first parameter field_name and the second parameter field_value are presented. If not given, iconv_mime_encode() assumes those parameters are presented to it in the iconv.internal_encoding ini setting. iconv.internal_encoding ISO-8859-1
    output-charset string Specifies the character set to use to compose the MIME header. iconv.internal_encoding UTF-8
    line-length int Specifies the maximum length of the header lines. The resulting header is "folded" to a set of multiple lines in case the resulting header field would be longer than the value of this parameter, according to » RFC2822 - Internet Message Format. If not given, the length will be limited to 76 characters. 76 996
    line-break-chars string Specifies the sequence of characters to append to each line as an end-of-line sign when "folding" is performed on a long header field. If not given, this defaults to "\r\n" (CR LF). Note that this parameter is always treated as an ASCII string regardless of the value of input-charset. \r\n \n

    Return Values

    Returns an encoded MIME field on success, or false if an error occurs during the encoding.

    Examples

    Example #1 iconv_mime_encode() example

    <?php
    $preferences     = array(
    "input-charset" => "ISO-8859-1",
    "output-charset" => "UTF-8",
    "line-length" => 76,
    "line-break-chars" => "\n"
    );
    $preferences["scheme"] = "Q";
    // This yields "Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Pr=C3=BCfung=20Pr=C3=BCfung?="
    echo iconv_mime_encode("Subject", "Prüfung Prüfung", $preferences);

    $preferences["scheme"] = "B";
    // This yields "Subject: =?UTF-8?B?UHLDvGZ1bmcgUHLDvGZ1bmc=?="
    echo iconv_mime_encode("Subject", "Prüfung Prüfung", $preferences);
    ?>

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    User Contributed Notes 3 notes

    up
    1
    cedric at gn dot apc dot org
    12 years ago
    iconv_mime_encode() isn't directly suitable for encoding headers which include "specials" as described in RFC 1522 s4 & s5, for example
    <?php
    $mimeprefs     = array ("scheme" => "Q",
    "input-charset" => "utf-8",
    "output-charset" => "utf-8",
    "line-break-chars" => "\n");
    $enc = iconv_mime_encode('From', '"Réal Namé" <user@example.com>', $prefs);
    ?>
    will wrongly attempt to encode the angle brackets. To use the function in place of mb_encode_mimeheader(), instead you need to encode the words separately, removing the superfluous field name:

    <?php
    $encoded     = "From: \"". preg_replace('/^:\s+/', '', iconv_mime_encode("", $real, $mimeprefs))."\" <$email>";
    ?>

    Also, values of "line-length" greater than 76 would be illegal under RFC 1522 and resulting encoded words may not be recognised. (Not tested, but 72 would be safer.)
    up
    0
    shaman_master at list dot ru
    4 years ago
    From mail(): Lines should not belarger than 70 characters. Not 76 and not 72!
    up
    0
    markus AT birth MINUS online DOT de
    14 years ago
    Looks like this function suffers from the same bug as mb_encode_mime() with long strings of non us-ascii characters. The function then returns false. This applies for utf-8 to utf-8 "conversion".

    <?php
    $subject     = 'Вы находитесь здесь: Главная > продукт';

    $prefs = array(
    'scheme' => 'Q',
    'input-charset' => 'UTF-8',
    'output-charset' => 'UTF-8',
    'line-length' => 76,
    'line-break-chars' => "\r\n",
    );

    echo     'Original: ' . $subject . PHP_EOL;
    $enc = iconv_mime_encode( 'Subject', $subject, $prefs );
    var_dump( $enc ); // will show bool(false)
    ?>

    As a workaround, you could explode() the value on spaces and encode each word separately. Then remove the "Subject: " in front of the resulting strings and join() them with "\r\n " (don't forget the SPACE after the \n) as separator.
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