PHP special chars to html entity codes

Question

I am trying to convert the special chars in my array to html entity codes:

this is my helper array:

'specialChars' => [
    '!', '"', '#', '$', '%', '&', "'", '(', ')', '*', '+',
    ',', '/', ':', ';', '<', '=', '>', '?', '@', '[', '\\',
    ']', '^', '_', '`', '{', '|', '}', '§', '©', '¶'
]

And this is the function:

    public static function convert($specialChars = [])
    {
        $htmlEntityArray = [];

        if(count($specialChars) == 0)
        {
            $specialChars = Config::get('constants.specialChars'); // gets the special char from the helper array
        }

        foreach ($specialChars as $key => $value)
        {
            $htmlEntityArray = array_map("htmlentities", $specialChars);
        }

        return $htmlEntityArray;
    }

But that only returns me this array, it convert some successfully and some not:

array:32 [▼
  0 => "!"
  1 => """
  2 => "#"
  3 => "$"
  4 => "%"
  5 => "&"
  6 => "'"
  7 => "("
  8 => ")"
  9 => "*"
  10 => "+"
  11 => ","
  12 => "/"
  13 => ":"
  14 => ";"
  15 => "<"
  16 => "="
  17 => ">"
  18 => "?"
  19 => "@"
  20 => "["
  21 => "\"
  22 => "]"
  23 => "^"
  24 => "_"
  25 => "`"
  26 => "{"
  27 => "|"
  28 => "}"
  29 => "§"
  30 => "©"
  31 => "¶"
]

Answer 1

You have to use the ENT_QUOTES and ENT_HTML5 flags.

$specialChars = [
    '!', '"', '#', '$', '%', '&', "'", '(', ')', '*', '+',
    ',', '/', ':', ';', '<', '=', '>', '?', '@', '[', '\\',
    ']', '^', '_', '`', '{', '|', '}', '§', '©', '¶'
];

var_export(array_map(function ($str) { return htmlentities($str, ENT_QUOTES | ENT_HTML5); }, $specialChars));

This returns:

array (
    0 => '!',
    1 => '"',
    2 => '#',
    3 => '$',
    4 => '%',
    5 => '&',
    6 => ''',
    7 => '(',
    8 => ')',
    9 => '*',
    10 => '+',
    11 => ',',
    12 => '/',
    13 => ':',
    14 => ';',
    15 => '<',
    16 => '=',
    17 => '>',
    18 => '?',
    19 => '@',
    20 => '[',
    21 => '\',
    22 => ']',
    23 => '^',
    24 => '_',
    25 => '`',
    26 => '{',
    27 => '|',
    28 => '}',
    29 => '§',
    30 => '©',
    31 => '¶',
)