Question

I’ve created an rss feed for a website, but it has 2 languages – Greek and English.
Everything works fine except the rss feed when an item has a title written in Greek.

So I though ok I must change the encoding before parsing the string. I failed 100%.

I have tried every encoding function php provides: iconv, ut8_encode, mb_convert_encoding also mb_detect_encoding strict and not. I also used html entities, but nothing seems to work

The source code generating the rss is this:

function construct_rss($results, $cat = null)
{

    if($results == false)
    {
        exit;
    }

    header('Content-Type: application/rss+xml charset=UTF-8');


    $rssfeed = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>';
    $rssfeed .= '<rss version="2.0">';
    $rssfeed .= '<channel>';
    $rssfeed .= '<title>domain.com RSS feed</title>';
    $rssfeed .= '<link>http://www.domain.com</link>';
    if($cat == null)
    {
        $rssfeed .= '<description>Upcoming events</description>';
    }
    else
    {
        $rssfeed .= '<description>Upcoming events - ' . $cat . '</description>';
    }
    $rssfeed .= '<language>en-us</language>';
    $rssfeed .= '<copyright>Copyright (C) 2012 domain.com</copyright>';


    foreach ($results as $key => $event) 
    {
        $exp = explode(',',$event['vName']);
        $vName = $exp[0]; 

        $rssfeed .= '<item>';
        $rssfeed .= '<title>' . $event['eTitle'] . ' @ ' . $vName . '</title>';
        $rssfeed .= '<description>' . htmlentities('<a href="http://www.domain.com/event.php?eid=' . $event['id'] .'"><img WIDTH="150" HEIGHT="220" style="width:150px;height:220px;padding-bottom:10px;padding-right:10px;" src="http://'.$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'].'/image.php?source='.urlencode('events/'.$event['folder'].'/images/default/' . $event['file_1']).'&w=150&h=220&out=raw"></a>' . '<p>' . $event['eDescr'] . '</div>') . '</description>';
        $rssfeed .= '<link>http://www.'.$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'].'/events/' . urlencode($event['eCategory']) . '/' .urlencode($event['url']). '</link>';
        $rssfeed .= '<pubDate>' . date("D, d M Y H:i:s O", strtotime($event['dStart'] . ' ' . $event['tStart'])) . '</pubDate>';
        $rssfeed .= '</item>';
    }

    $rssfeed .= '</channel>';
    $rssfeed .= '</rss>';

    echo $rssfeed;

}

And here is a raw output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?><rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>domain.com RSS feed</title>
<link>http://www.domai.com</link>
<description>Upcoming events</description>
<language>en-us</language><copyright>Copyright (C) 2012 domain.com</copyright>
<item>
<title>ΕΙΣΒΟΛΕΑΣ & EVERSOR - O μÏθος καταÏÏέει @ Gagarin 205 Live Music Space</title>
<description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.domain.com/event.php?eid=209&quot;&gt;&lt;img WIDTH=&quot;150&quot; HEIGHT=&quot;220&quot; style=&quot;width:150px;height:220px;padding-bottom:10px;padding-right:10px;&quot; src=&quot;http://www.comain.com/image.php?source=events%2F985d6bfa8e35df69471b1ecdb9ed187e%2Fimages%2Fdefault%2Feisvo.jpg&amp;w=150&amp;h=220&amp;out=raw&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;&amp;Epsilon;&amp;Iota;&amp;Sigma;&amp;Beta;&amp;Omicron;&amp;Lambda;&amp;Epsilon;&amp;Alpha;&amp;Sigma; &amp;amp; EVERSOR - &quot;&amp;Omicron; &amp;Mu;&amp;Upsilon;&amp;Theta;&amp;Omicron;&amp;Sigma; &amp;Kappa;&amp;Alpha;&amp;Tau;&amp;Alpha;&amp;Rho;&amp;Rho;&amp;Epsilon;&amp;Epsilon;&amp;Iota;&quot; TOUR LIVE @ &amp;Alpha;&amp;Theta;&amp;Eta;&amp;Nu;&amp;Alpha; (GAGARIN205), &amp;Sigma;&amp;Alpha;&amp;Beta; 22/12&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;doors open: 20.00&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;ticket price: 10e&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;guests: 12os Pithikos &amp;amp; Hatemost&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;opening: Gelws&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.www.domain.com/events/Hip-Hop+Rap/%CE%95%CE%99%CE%A3%CE%92%CE%9F%CE%9B%CE%95%CE%91%CE%A3-EVERSOR-%CE%9F-%CE%9C%CE%A5%CE%98%CE%9F%CE%A3-%CE%9A%CE%91%CE%A4%CE%91%CE%A1%CE%A1%CE%95%CE%95%CE%99-0</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 22 Dec 2012 20:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

As you can see the problem is at the item’s title.

If anyone could point to a direction or something because I can’t figure this one out. I thought by converting $event['eTitle'] encoding it would work but no luck.

EDIT: stored in db as TEXT utf8_general_ci

EDIT 2: this seems to work ->

utf8_encode(htmlentities($event['eTitle'],ENT_COMPAT,'utf-8'))

but on W3C validator I get this error: column 268: XML parsing error: :1:268: undefined entity

and here Is the highlighted section:

EVERSOR - O μÃ\x8fÂ\x8dθ

\x8f and \x8d cause this error. But why?

Answer 1

It’s supposed to be: header('Content-Type: application/rss+xml; charset=UTF-8');, you are missing a semicolon. Your data is already UTF-8 which is evidenced by htmlentities working out θ when UTF-8 is specified. Since your data is already in UTF-8, utf8_encode will make it even worse.

There is no need for any conversion, you should check if the proper header changes anything. Your raw output is correct, it’s just that it’s being interpreted as Windows-1252 instead of UTF-8.

---

Btw, in XML μ and θ are undefined entities by default. This shows an example how to define entities, but is not really valid:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE channel
[
    <!ENTITY mu   "&#924;">
    <!ENTITY theta   "&#920;">
]>
<channel>
EVERSOR - O &mu;Ã\x8fÂ\x8d&theta;
</channel>

Nevertheless, it gets shown correctly in chrome and firefox, without undefined entity erros.

This is just supplemental information, your raw data is correct in the first place so nothing need to be done.