Drupal - Clean urls - auto path alias - how to remove accents (Á É Ó Í Ñ ) from the urls?

Have you seen transliteration module ? The project summary says it could be used with pathauto 2.x to use transliteration for URLs.

The simplest way to perform this remains transliteration module.

To answer specifically to "Does pathauto have some kind of hooks that I could use to apply this function", you can use hook_pathauto_alias_alter() :

function YOURMODULE_pathauto_alias_alter(&$alias, &$context){
  $alias = removeAccents($alias);
}

function removeAccents($str){
  $a = array('À', 'Á', 'Â', 'Ã', 'Ä', 'Å', 'Æ', 'Ç', 'È', 'É', 'Ê', 'Ë', 'Ì', 'Í', 'Î', 'Ï', 'Ð', 'Ñ', 'Ò', 'Ó', 'Ô', 'Õ', 'Ö', 'Ø', 'Ù', 'Ú', 'Û', 'Ü', 'Ý', 'ß', 'à', 'á', 'â', 'ã', 'ä', 'å', 'æ', 'ç', 'è', 'é', 'ê', 'ë', 'ì', 'í', 'î', 'ï', 'ñ', 'ò', 'ó', 'ô', 'õ', 'ö', 'ø', 'ù', 'ú', 'û', 'ü', 'ý', 'ÿ', 'Ā', 'ā', 'Ă', 'ă', 'Ą', 'ą', 'Ć', 'ć', 'Ĉ', 'ĉ', 'Ċ', 'ċ', 'Č', 'č', 'Ď', 'ď', 'Đ', 'đ', 'Ē', 'ē', 'Ĕ', 'ĕ', 'Ė', 'ė', 'Ę', 'ę', 'Ě', 'ě', 'Ĝ', 'ĝ', 'Ğ', 'ğ', 'Ġ', 'ġ', 'Ģ', 'ģ', 'Ĥ', 'ĥ', 'Ħ', 'ħ', 'Ĩ', 'ĩ', 'Ī', 'ī', 'Ĭ', 'ĭ', 'Į', 'į', 'İ', 'ı', 'IJ', 'ij', 'Ĵ', 'ĵ', 'Ķ', 'ķ', 'Ĺ', 'ĺ', 'Ļ', 'ļ', 'Ľ', 'ľ', 'Ŀ', 'ŀ', 'Ł', 'ł', 'Ń', 'ń', 'Ņ', 'ņ', 'Ň', 'ň', 'ʼn', 'Ō', 'ō', 'Ŏ', 'ŏ', 'Ő', 'ő', 'Œ', 'œ', 'Ŕ', 'ŕ', 'Ŗ', 'ŗ', 'Ř', 'ř', 'Ś', 'ś', 'Ŝ', 'ŝ', 'Ş', 'ş', 'Š', 'š', 'Ţ', 'ţ', 'Ť', 'ť', 'Ŧ', 'ŧ', 'Ũ', 'ũ', 'Ū', 'ū', 'Ŭ', 'ŭ', 'Ů', 'ů', 'Ű', 'ű', 'Ų', 'ų', 'Ŵ', 'ŵ', 'Ŷ', 'ŷ', 'Ÿ', 'Ź', 'ź', 'Ż', 'ż', 'Ž', 'ž', 'ſ', 'ƒ', 'Ơ', 'ơ', 'Ư', 'ư', 'Ǎ', 'ǎ', 'Ǐ', 'ǐ', 'Ǒ', 'ǒ', 'Ǔ', 'ǔ', 'Ǖ', 'ǖ', 'Ǘ', 'ǘ', 'Ǚ', 'ǚ', 'Ǜ', 'ǜ', 'Ǻ', 'ǻ', 'Ǽ', 'ǽ', 'Ǿ', 'ǿ');
  $b = array('A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'A', 'AE', 'C', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'E', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'I', 'D', 'N', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'O', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'U', 'Y', 's', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'ae', 'c', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'i', 'i', 'i', 'i', 'n', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'o', 'u', 'u', 'u', 'u', 'y', 'y', 'A', 'a', 'A', 'a', 'A', 'a', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'C', 'c', 'D', 'd', 'D', 'd', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'E', 'e', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'G', 'g', 'H', 'h', 'H', 'h', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'I', 'i', 'IJ', 'ij', 'J', 'j', 'K', 'k', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'L', 'l', 'l', 'l', 'N', 'n', 'N', 'n', 'N', 'n', 'n', 'O', 'o', 'O', 'o', 'O', 'o', 'OE', 'oe', 'R', 'r', 'R', 'r', 'R', 'r', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'S', 's', 'T', 't', 'T', 't', 'T', 't', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'W', 'w', 'Y', 'y', 'Y', 'Z', 'z', 'Z', 'z', 'Z', 'z', 's', 'f', 'O', 'o', 'U', 'u', 'A', 'a', 'I', 'i', 'O', 'o', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'U', 'u', 'A', 'a', 'AE', 'ae', 'O', 'o');
  return str_replace($a, $b, $str);
}

Just adapt removeAccents() to your specific language needs... You'll find many functions trying to list all kind of accents, see Remove diacritics from a string i.e., but I'm afraid none is universal.

There is also an elegant way to transliterate, using php iconv function, which removes most of the diacritics. If you are getting question-marks in output, it might be convenient to setlocale first. In context :

function YOURMODULE_pathauto_alias_alter(&$alias, &$context){
  setlocale(LC_CTYPE, 'es_ES');//Spanish Spain i.e
  $alias = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $alias);
}

EDIT : after reading some comments, I found useful to add this:

• D8 : transliteration functionality is now part of Drupal 8 core, use hook_transliteration_overrides_alter(&$overrides, $langcode) if yo need some custom overrides.

• D7 : seems that transliteration next release 7.x-4.x will be a backport of the codebase from D8 core, including the above hook. In the meanwhile, transliteration module supports language-specific variations (see Language-specific replacements how-to at the bottom of the doc page). And a couple of relevant issues : Add hook to allow customization of character mappings, alter hook for transliteration_clean_filename.

As per Kojo's suggestions and and source from here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3371697/replacing-accented-characters-php -- I'm using this code which seems to be working fine:

function mymodule_pathauto_alias_alter(&$alias, &$context) {        
    removeAccents($alias);        
}

function removeAccents(&$str) {
    $unwanted_array = array('Š' => 'S', 'š' => 's', 'Ž' => 'Z', 'ž' => 'z', 'À' => 'A', 'Á' => 'A', 'Â' => 'A', 'Ã' => 'A', 'Ä' => 'A', 'Å' => 'A', 'Æ' => 'A', 'Ç' => 'C', 'È' => 'E', 'É' => 'E',
        'Ê' => 'E', 'Ë' => 'E', 'Ì' => 'I', 'Í' => 'I', 'Î' => 'I', 'Ï' => 'I', 'Ñ' => 'N', 'Ò' => 'O', 'Ó' => 'O', 'Ô' => 'O', 'Õ' => 'O', 'Ö' => 'O', 'Ø' => 'O', 'Ù' => 'U',
        'Ú' => 'U', 'Û' => 'U', 'Ü' => 'U', 'Ý' => 'Y', 'Þ' => 'B', 'ß' => 'Ss', 'à' => 'a', 'á' => 'a', 'â' => 'a', 'ã' => 'a', 'ä' => 'a', 'å' => 'a', 'æ' => 'a', 'ç' => 'c',
        'è' => 'e', 'é' => 'e', 'ê' => 'e', 'ë' => 'e', 'ì' => 'i', 'í' => 'i', 'î' => 'i', 'ï' => 'i', 'ð' => 'o', 'ñ' => 'n', 'ò' => 'o', 'ó' => 'o', 'ô' => 'o', 'õ' => 'o',
        'ö' => 'o', 'ø' => 'o', 'ù' => 'u', 'ú' => 'u', 'û' => 'u', 'ý' => 'y', 'ý' => 'y', 'þ' => 'b', 'ÿ' => 'y',
        'G' => 'G', 'I' => 'I', 'S' => 'S', 'g' => 'g', 'i' => 'i', 's' => 's', 'ü' => 'u',
        'a' => 'a', 'A' => 'A', '?' => 's', '?' => 'S', '?' => 't', '?' => 'T'
    );
    $str = strtr($str, $unwanted_array);

}

I've added Turkish and Romanian chars too as in the post comments.

I don't want to use iconv as suggested by Kojo mainly because locale will need to be set and there is added burden to coin the locale string.