iconv problem

[asmith]

Hello,

 

I'm trying to insert some arabic characters into MSSQL. I'm preparing the value with this:

 

iconv('UTF-8', 'cp1256//TRANSLIT', $string);

 

Which is working fine as it supposed to. The problem is the character ی. If a word contains it, that character gets deleted in iconv. Apparently it is not list in cp1256? The similar character to it is ي (with 2 dots under it)  but it doesn't get converted to it. I tried replacing these characters manually and it worked fine. Wanted to know why it is not accepting that character and if there are better ways than replacing manually?

 

Thanks for your time.

PS. In a hex editor when I enter ی it gives me ? sign. but when I enter ي it gives me ED. Something is wrong with that character.