Question

I have created this php script, to create an xml-file from my database:

<?php
header("Content-type: text/xml");
header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1990 05:00:00 GMT");
header("Last-Modified: " . gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s") . " GMT");
header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate");
header("Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0", false);
header("Pragma: no-cache");

$host = "localhost";
$user = "root";
$pass = "root";
$database = "flexapp";

$charToReplace = array("é", "è", "ê");
$charReplacements = array("e", "e", "e");

$linkID = mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass) or die("Could not connect to host.");
mysql_select_db($database, $linkID) or die("Could not find database.");

$query = "SELECT * FROM artists";
$artist_result = mysql_query($query, $linkID) or die("Data not found.");

$xml_output = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n";
$xml_output .= "<artists>\n";

for($x = 0 ; $x < mysql_num_rows($artist_result) ; $x++){
    $itemrow = mysql_fetch_assoc($artist_result);
    $xml_output .= "\t<artist>\n";
    $xml_output .= "\t\t<id>" . $itemrow['pk_artist_id'] . "</id>\n";
    $itemrow['artist_name'] = str_replace($charToReplace, $charReplacements,         $itemrow['artist_name']);
    $xml_output .= "\t\t<name>" . $itemrow['artist_name'] . "</name>\n";
    $xml_output .= "\t\t<picture>" . $itemrow['artist_pic'] . "</picture>\n";
    $xml_output .= "\t\t<twitter>" . $itemrow['artist_twitter'] . "</twitter>\n";
    $xml_output .= "\t</artist>\n";
}
$xml_output .= "</artists>\n";
echo $xml_output;
?>

I try to replace characters like é en ê to e.

But it gives this error in the browser:

This page contains the following errors:

error on line 23 at column 9: Encoding error

This is the xml that is outputted:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<artists>
<artist>
    <id>1155</id>
    <name>Have Heart</name>
    <picture>http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/126/29086375.jpg</picture>
    <twitter></twitter>
</artist>
<artist>
    <id>1156</id>
    <name>Dead Swans</name>
    <picture>http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/126/4781939.jpg</picture>
    <twitter></twitter>
</artist>
<artist>
    <id>1157</id>
    <name>Nirvana</name>
    <picture>http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/126/3991355.jpg</picture>
    <twitter></twitter>
</artist>
<artist>
    <id>1158</id>
    <name>Touchter>
</artist>

But the last one (the name in the database is Touché Amoré) should be like all the rest, but somehow the strings aren’t being replaced.

Answer 1

This may be an issue with encoding the data before printing. Try using utf8_encode() and htmlentities()

function xmlencode($data) {
    $data = utf8_encode($data);
    $data = htmlentities($data);
    return $data;
}

and then

...
$xml_output .= "\t\t<picture>" . xmlencode($itemrow['artist_pic']) . "</picture>\n";
...