code: protected static function safeUtf8Encode($text)
      {
          if (function_exists('mb_detect_encoding')) {
              if (mb_detect_encoding($text, 'UTF-8', true) !== 'UTF-8') {
                  $text = utf8_encode($text);
              }
          } else {
              // Fall back to hack
              $encodedText = utf8_encode($text);
              if (strpos($encodedText, 'Ã') === false) {
                  $text = $encodedText;
              }
          }
          return $text;
      }
docs: Safely converts some text to UTF-8.
  
  @param string $text
  @return string