PHP 8.4.6 Released!

mb_encode_mimeheader

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.6, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

mb_encode_mimeheaderEncode string for MIME header

Description

mb_encode_mimeheader(
    string $string,
    ?string $charset = null,
    ?string $transfer_encoding = null,
    string $newline = "\r\n",
    int $indent = 0
): string

Encodes a given string string by the MIME header encoding scheme.

Parameters

string

The string being encoded. Its encoding should be same as mb_internal_encoding().

charset

charset specifies the name of the character set in which string is represented in. The default value is determined by the current NLS setting (mbstring.language).

transfer_encoding

transfer_encoding specifies the scheme of MIME encoding. It should be either "B" (Base64) or "Q" (Quoted-Printable). Falls back to "B" if not given.

newline

newline specifies the EOL (end-of-line) marker with which mb_encode_mimeheader() performs line-folding (a » RFC term, the act of breaking a line longer than a certain length into multiple lines. The length is currently hard-coded to 74 characters). Falls back to "\r\n" (CRLF) if not given.

indent

Indentation of the first line (number of characters in the header before string).

Return Values

A converted version of the string represented in ASCII.

Changelog

Version Description
8.3.0 NUL (0) bytes are no longer dropped when encoded using Quoted-Printable encoding, but encoded as =00.
8.0.0 charset and transfer_encoding are nullable now.

Examples

Example #1 mb_encode_mimeheader() example

<?php
$name
= "太郎"; // kanji
$mbox = "kru";
$doma = "gtinn.mon";
$addr = '"' . addcslashes(mb_encode_mimeheader($name, "UTF-7", "Q"), '"') . '" <' . $mbox . "@" . $doma . ">";
echo
$addr;
?>

The above example will output:

"=?UTF-7?Q?+WSqQzg-?=" <kru@gtinn.mon>

Notes

Note:

This function isn't designed to break lines at higher-level contextual break points (word boundaries, etc.). This behaviour may clutter up the original string with unexpected spaces.

See Also

User Contributed Notes

stormflyCUT at hyh dot pl
18 years ago
Some solution for using national chars and have problem with UTF-8 for example in mail subject. Before you use mb_encode_mimeheader with UTF-8 set mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8').
nigrez at nius dot waw dot pl
19 years ago
True, function is broken (PHP5.1, encoding from UTF-8 with pl_PL charset). Below is about 15% faster version of proposed _mb_mime_encode. Also it has header more like othe mb_* functions and doesn't trigger any errors/warnings/notices.

<?php

function mb_mime_header($string, $encoding=null, $linefeed="\r\n") {
if(!
$encoding) $encoding = mb_internal_encoding();
$encoded = '';

while(
$length = mb_strlen($string)) {
$encoded .= "=?$encoding?B?"
. base64_encode(mb_substr($string,0,24,$encoding))
.
"?=$linefeed";

$string = mb_substr($string,24,$length,$encoding);
}

return
$encoded;
}

?>
gullevek at gullevek dot org
21 years ago
Read this FIRST: http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=23192 because mb_encode_mimeheaders is BUGGY!

a work around for the multibyte broken error for too long subjects for ISO-2022-JP:

$pos=0;
$split=36; // after 36 single bytes characters, if then comes MB, it is broken
while ($pos<mb_strlen($string,$encoding))
{
$output=mb_strimwidth($string,$pos,$split,"",$encoding);
$pos+=mb_strlen($output,$encoding);
$_string.=(($_string)?' ':'').mb_encode_mimeheader($output,$encoding);
}
$string=$_string;

is not the best, but it works
Anonymous
16 years ago
I could not find a PHP function to MIME encode the name for a n email address.

Input = "Karl Müller<kmueller@gmx.de>"
Output = "Karl%20M%FCller<kmueller@gmx.de>"

I wrote it on my own:

<?php
// required to encode names in email addresses
// replace " " with "%20"
// replace "ü" with "%FC"
// replace "%" with "%25" etc....
// Use "%" as Delimiter for MIME
// Use "=" as Delimiter for Quoted Printable
// Input string must be UTF8 encoded
public static function EncodeMime($Text, $Delimiter)
{
$Text = utf8_decode($Text);
$Len = strlen($Text);
$Out = "";
for (
$i=0; $i<$Len; $i++)
{
$Chr = substr($Text, $i, 1);
$Asc = ord($Chr);

if (
$Asc > 0x255) // Unicode not allowed
{
$Out .= "?";
}
else if (
$Chr == " " || $Chr == $Delimiter || $Asc > 127)
{
$Out .= $Delimiter . strtoupper(bin2hex($Chr));
}
else
$Out .= $Chr;
}
return
$Out;
}
?>
tokul at users dot sourceforge dot net
17 years ago
mb_encode_mimeheader() depends on correct mbstring.internal_encoding setting. It tries to convert $str from internal encoding to $charset. If you ignore mbstring internal encoding, function might encode strings incorrectly even when $str character set matches $charset
gullevek at gullevek dot org
19 years ago
My first post was around 2003, and still the mb_mime_header is broken. It is *NOT* usable with longer subjects, and mostly unusable with anything else than japanese.

iwakura at junx dot org is also not working for me, it produces also some gargabe.

I updated my old function (the one I posted 2003) and I tested it with overlong subjects in UTF-8, ISO-2022-JP (japanese), GB2312 (simplified chinese) and EUC-KR (korean) and I got readable results in thunderbird, mail.app, outlook, etc.

<?php

function _mb_mime_encode($string, $encoding)
{
$pos = 0;
// after 36 single bytes characters if then comes MB, it is broken
// but I trimmed it down to 24, to stay 100% < 76 chars per line
$split = 24;
while (
$pos < mb_strlen($string, $encoding))
{
$output = mb_strimwidth($string, $pos, $split, "", $encoding);
$pos += mb_strlen($output, $encoding);
$_string_encoded = "=?".$encoding."?B?".base64_encode($output)."?=";
if (
$_string)
$_string .= "\r\n";
$_string .= $_string_encoded;
}
$string = $_string;
return
$string;
}

?>
paravoid
19 years ago
If mb_ version doesn't work for you in MIME-B mode:

function encode_mimeheader($string, $charset=null, $linefeed="\r\n") {
if (!$charset)
$charset = mb_internal_encoding();

$start = "=?$charset?B?";
$end = "?=";
$encoded = '';

/* Each line must have length <= 75, including $start and $end */
$length = 75 - strlen($start) - strlen($end);
/* Average multi-byte ratio */
$ratio = mb_strlen($string, $charset) / strlen($string);
/* Base64 has a 4:3 ratio */
$magic = $avglength = floor(3 * $length * $ratio / 4);

for ($i=0; $i <= mb_strlen($string, $charset); $i+=$magic) {
$magic = $avglength;
$offset = 0;
/* Recalculate magic for each line to be 100% sure */
do {
$magic -= $offset;
$chunk = mb_substr($string, $i, $magic, $charset);
$chunk = base64_encode($chunk);
$offset++;
} while (strlen($chunk) > $length);
if ($chunk)
$encoded .= ' '.$start.$chunk.$end.$linefeed;
}
/* Chomp the first space and the last linefeed */
$encoded = substr($encoded, 1, -strlen($linefeed));

return $encoded;
}
chappy at citromail dot hu
19 years ago
In countries where there's non-us ASCII, it's a very good example, for sending mail:

mb_internal_encoding('iso-8859-2');
setlocale(LC_CTYPE, 'hu_HU');

function encode($str,$charset){
$str=mb_encode_mimeheader(trim($str),$charset, 'Q', "\n\t");
return $str;
}

print encode('the text with spec. chars: &#337; &#368; &#336; &#369;, ?','iso-8859-2');

It creates a 7bit string
iwakura at junx dot org
19 years ago
i think mb_encode_mimeheader still have bug. here is sample code:

function mb_encode_mimeheader2($string, $encoding = "ISO-2022-JP") {
$string_array = array();
$pos = 0;
$row = 0;
$mode = 0;

while ($pos < mb_strlen($string)) {
$word = mb_strimwidth($string, $pos, 1);
if (!$word) {
$word = mb_strimwidth($string, $pos, 2);
}
if (mb_ereg_match("[ -~]", $word)) { // ascii
if ($mode != 1) {
$row++;
$mode = 1;
$string_array[$row] = NULL;
}
} else { // multibyte
if ($mode != 2) {
$row++;
$mode = 2;
$string_array[$row] = NULL;
}
}
$string_array[$row] .= $word;
$pos++;
}

//echo "<pre>";
//print_r($string_array);
//echo "</pre>";

foreach ($string_array as $key => $value) {
$value = mb_convert_encoding($value, $encoding);
$string_array[$key] = mb_encode_mimeheader($value, $encoding);
}

//echo "<pre>";
//print_r($string_array);
//echo "</pre>";

return implode("", $string_array);
}

is not the best, but it works
mortoray at ecircle-ag dot com
20 years ago
At least for Q encoding, this function is unsafe and does not encode correctly. Raw characters which appear as RFC2047 sequences are simply left as is.

Ex:

mb_encode_mimeheader( '=?iso-8859-1?q?this=20is=20some=20text?=' );

returns '=?iso-8859-1?q?this=20is=20some=20text?='

The exact same string, which is obviously not the encoding for the source string. That is, mb_encode_mimeheader does not do any type of escaping.

That is, the following condition is not always true:
mb_decode_mimeheader( mb_encode_mimeheader( $text ) ) == $text
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