IntlChar::isUAlphabetic() function in PHP

The IntlChar::isUAlphabetic() function is used to check whether the entered value is an Alphabetic Unicode character or not. This function is part of PHP's Internationalization extension and follows Unicode standards for character classification.

Syntax

IntlChar::isUAlphabetic(val)

Parameters

• val − A character or integer value encoded as a UTF-8 string, or an integer codepoint value.

Return Value

The IntlChar::isUAlphabetic() function returns TRUE if the value is an Alphabetic Unicode character, FALSE otherwise, or NULL on failure.

Example

The following example demonstrates checking various characters ?

<?php
    var_dump(IntlChar::isUAlphabetic("7"));
    echo "<br>";
    var_dump(IntlChar::isUAlphabetic("Y"));
    echo "<br>";
    var_dump(IntlChar::isUAlphabetic("@"));
    echo "<br>";
    var_dump(IntlChar::isUAlphabetic("?")); // Greek alpha
    echo "<br>";
    var_dump(IntlChar::isUAlphabetic(65)); // ASCII code for 'A'
?>

Output

bool(false)
bool(true)
bool(false)
bool(true)
bool(true)

Key Points

• The function only works with single characters, not strings
• It supports Unicode alphabetic characters from various languages
• Integer codepoint values can also be passed as parameters
• Returns NULL for invalid input like multi-character strings

Conclusion

The IntlChar::isUAlphabetic() function provides Unicode-aware alphabetic character detection, making it useful for internationalized applications that need to validate characters from different writing systems.