Description:
------------
Trying to decode HTML entities into UTF-8 results in the following error
message:

Warning: cannot yet handle MBCS in html_entity_decode()!

The line is repeated about 200 times, then html_entity_decode just uses
ISO-8859-1 charset.

Reproduce code:
---------------
echo html_entity_decode("ü", ENT_QUOTES, "UTF-8");

Expected result:
----------------
some UTF-8 encoding of 'ü'

Actual result:
--------------
error messages see above, then Latin-1 encoding of 'ü'

Slightly correcting: It won't use Latin-1 but just do nothing. I tested
with a Unicode character (≈ "almost equal") and it returned the
character readable.
Can be tested by passing html_entity_decode to htmlspecialchars and then
echo'ing.

The very issue was already addressed and the appropriate fix is ready
for php5, though we won't introduce this feature to the current stable
version (4.3.x).

See:
http://cvs.php.net/diff.php/php-src/NEWS?r1=1.1403&r2=1.1404

OK, I found another way for my issue anyway...

<?php
// Returns the utf string corresponding to the unicode value (from
php.net, courtesy - romans@void.lv)
function code2utf($num)
{
	if ($num < 128) return chr($num);
	if ($num < 2048) return chr(($num >> 6) + 192) . chr(($num & 63) +
128);
	if ($num < 65536) return chr(($num >> 12) + 224) . chr((($num >> 6) &
63) + 128) . chr(($num & 63) + 128);
	if ($num < 2097152) return chr(($num >> 18) + 240) . chr((($num >> 12)
& 63) + 128) . chr((($num >> 6) & 63) + 128) . chr(($num & 63) + 128);
	return '';
}

function encode($str)
{
	return preg_replace('/&#(\\d+);/e', 'code2utf($1)',
utf8_encode($str));
}
?>

Is there a particular reason you won't backport this fix to the 4.3
series? I can't find an explanation/discussion of this refusal. If
somebody else backported this fix, would it be accepted? Sounds like
quite a fairly important and useful bugfix to me.

Just curious. Currently downloading PHP5, will give it a spin.