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run code in 300+ PHP versions simultaneously
<?php function encode($to_encode){ $i=0; $len=strlen($to_encode); $ret=''; for($i=0;$i<$len;++$i){ $ret.=str_pad(ord($to_encode[$i]),4,"0",STR_PAD_LEFT);//4 should be enough for UTF-8, right? } return $ret; } function decode($numberstr){ $numberstr=(string)$numberstr; $ret=''; $i=0; $ii=0; $len=strlen($numberstr); $shit=''; $len2=null; for($i=0;$i<$len;$i+=4){ $shit=ltrim(substr($numberstr,$i,4),'0'); $ret.=chr($shit[$ii]); } return $ret; } $str="the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog こどものじかん"; var_dump($str,encode($str),decode(encode($str)));

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37.73 ms | 402 KiB | 5 Q