[php] How do I remove accents from characters in a PHP string?

<?php
/* 
 * Thanks:
 *   - The idea of extracting accents equiv chars with the help of the HTMLSpecialChars convertion was taking from ICanBoogie Package of 'Olivier Laviale' {@link http://www.weirdog.com/blog/php/supprimer-les-accents-des-caracteres-accentues.html}
*/
function accentCharsModifier($str){
    if(($length=mb_strlen($str,"UTF-8"))<strlen($str)){
        $i=$count=0;
        while($i<$length){
            if(strlen($c=mb_substr($str,$i,1,"UTF-8"))>1){
                $he=htmlentities($c); 
                if(($nC=preg_replace("#&([A-Za-z])(?:acute|cedil|caron|circ|grave|orn|ring|slash|th|tilde|uml);#", "\\1", $he))!=$he ||
                    ($nC=preg_replace("#&([A-Za-z]{2})(?:lig);#", "\\1", $he))!=$he ||
                    ($nC=preg_replace("#&[^;]+;#", "", $he))!=$he){
                    $str=str_replace($c,$nC,$str,$count);if($nC==""){$length=$length-$count;$i--;}
                }
            }
            $i++;
        }
    }
    return $str;
}
echo accentCharsModifier("&éôpkAÈû");
?>