Description:
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Hi!

My HTML source I write in the encoding UTF-8 and I have probably found a bug (... soon cost me two hours of searching and working for a flaw in my logic).

And indeed, I want with preg_match() a string to check for valid characters and simultaneously for a minimum length. In the string should german special characters (Ä, Ö, Ü, ß) also be allowed. As I noted, these are all PCRE functions treated as two letters, if the encoding is UTF-8. Examples see below.

For tips on how I can work around this problem, I would be grateful.

greeting
Ki-Bi

Test script:
---------------
/*
   remark:
   The source is saved with encoding UTF-8 (without BOM)
*/
$animal = 'Bär';
if (preg_match('~^[a-zäöüß\.\- ]{4,26}$~i', $animal)){
		echo "$animal has a word length from 4 to 26 letters.\n";
	}else{
		echo "$animal is too short or too long!\n";}
$string = 'Dörte hütet die Schäfchen und trinkt dabei ein Maß Bier. Ärger gibt es dabei nicht.';
echo preg_replace('~[äöüß]~i', '*', $string);

Expected result:
----------------
Bär has a word length from 4 to 26 letters.
D**rte h**tet die Sch**fchen und trinkt dabei ein Ma** Bier. *�rger gibt es dabei nicht.