PHP - convert string to utf-8

        //source: http://www.toao.net/48-replacing-smart-quotes-and-em-dashes-in-mysql
        //By Mango, March 5th, 2009
        
        //clean charset
        function c($text){
                // First, replace UTF-8 characters.
                $text = str_replace(
                                array("\xe2\x80\x98", "\xe2\x80\x99", "\xe2\x80\x9c", "\xe2\x80\x9d", "\xe2\x80\x93", "\xe2\x80\x94", "\xe2\x80\xa6"),
                                array("'", "'", '"', '"', '-', '--', '...'),
                                $text
                        );
                // Next, replace their Windows-1252 equivalents.
                 $text = str_replace(
                                 array(chr(145), chr(146), chr(147), chr(148), chr(150), chr(151), chr(133)),
                                 array("'", "'", '"', '"', '-', '--', '...'),
                                 $text
                         );
                return $text;                 

        }