[PHP] converting extended chars to plain ascii

Hello, A libarary I'm using (the cybersource api if it helps any) is dying when I pass it "extended" chars - such as bjorn (two dots over the o - not sure of the actual name of this char -sorry). For some reason, the newest version of cybersourc's api aborts on this input. Can anyone recommend

Re: [PHP] converting extended chars to plain ascii

You are calling mysql_real_escape_string, right?... And is the character set of the MySQL server, and of the MySQL client, set to whatever character set bjorn with the two-dots-o is in?... I don't claim to understand this stuff, but I know you can't just magically make a non-ASCII character someh