NAME

Encode::Wide - Convert wide characters (Unicode, UTF-8, etc.) into HTML or XML-safe ASCII entities

VERSION

0.06

SYNOPSIS

use Encode::Wide qw(wide_to_html wide_to_xml);

my $html = wide_to_html(string => "Café déjà vu – naïve façade");
# returns: 'Café déjà vu – naïve façade'

my $xml = wide_to_xml(string => "Café déjà vu – naïve façade");
# returns: 'Café déjà vu – naïve façade'

DESCRIPTION

Encode::Wide provides functions for converting wide (Unicode) characters into ASCII-safe formats suitable for embedding in HTML or XML documents. It is especially useful when dealing with text containing accented or typographic characters that need to be safely represented in markup.

Other modules exist to do this, however they tend to have assumptions on the input, whereas this should work with UTF-8, Unicode, or anything that's common.

The module offers two exportable functions:

• wide_to_html(string = $text)>

  Converts all non-ASCII characters in the input string to their named HTML entities if available, or hexadecimal numeric entities otherwise. Common characters such as `é`, `à`, `&`, `<`, `>` are converted to their standard HTML representations like `&eacute;`, `&agrave;`, `&amp;`, etc.

• wide_to_xml(string = $text)>

  Converts all non-ASCII characters in the input string to hexadecimal numeric entities. Unlike HTML, XML does not support many named entities, so this function ensures compliance by using numeric representations such as `&#xE9;` for `é`.

PARAMETERS

Both functions accept a named parameter:

• string — The Unicode string to convert.

ENCODING

Input strings are expected to be valid UTF-8 or Unicode. If a byte string is passed, the module will attempt to decode it appropriately. Output is guaranteed to be pure ASCII.

EXPORT

None by default.

Optionally exportable:

wide_to_html
wide_to_xml

SEE ALSO

• Test coverage report: https://nigelhorne.github.io/Encode-Wide/coverage/
• HTML::Entities
• Encode
• XML::Entities
• Unicode::Escape
• https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/

SUPPORT

This module is provided as-is without any warranty.

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-encode-wide at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Encode-Wide. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

AUTHOR

Nigel Horne, <njh at nigelhorne.com>

LICENCE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2025 Nigel Horne.

Usage is subject to licence terms.

The licence terms of this software are as follows:

• Personal single user, single computer use: GPL2
• All other users (including Commercial, Charity, Educational, Government) must apply in writing for a licence for use from Nigel Horne at the above e-mail.