Missing characters in parsed XML output with PHP5

Answer 1

If you have correct encoding you dont need to escape Ø (Ø). Try to use unicode to be sure.

If there is no way to change the behavior try unescaping HTML entities, check PHP manual.

Answer 2

ok, got a bit further, if I user var_dump instead of echo I get this:

object(SimpleXMLElement)[22]
  public 'symbol' => 
  object(SimpleXMLElement)[21]
  public '@attributes' => 
    array
      'name' => string 'Oslash' (length=6)
      'unicode' => string '00D8' (length=4)
      'type' => string 'html' (length=4)
      'glyph' => string '@Oslash;' (length=8)
      'description' => string 'capital O, slash' (length=16)
      'ascii' => string 'O' (length=1)
  string ' ' (length=1)

I wonder how I can use that to make a complete string together with the contents of forenames

Answer 3

Looking at the DTD, it says this (but without line breaks):

<!ENTITY Oslash 
    "<symbol name='Oslash' unicode='00D8'
     type='html' glyph='@Oslash;' description='capital O, slash' 
     ascii='O' > </symbol>"
>

To any XML reader using this DTD, this means "Whenever you see this exact combination of letters in the source: Ø, replace it with this text: <symbol name='Oslash' unicode... > </symbol>

This means that the XML data actually reads like this:

<forenames>NIELS B<symbol name='Oslash' unicode='00D8'
     type='html' glyph='@Oslash;' description='capital O, slash' 
     ascii='O' > </symbol>IE</forenames>

...which explains why it's not showing up in your browser. The way around it would be to search your XML document for all <symbol> elements, read the unicode parameter and replace them with that.

---

Looking further at it, the comments at the top of the DTD show they've considered people in your situation! The glyph attribute on the <symbol> tag is the standard HTML entity to use for that symbol, but with the ampersand replaced with an @.

10 read xml document
20 search for any <symbol> element
30 read the "glyph" attribute
40 remove the <symbol> element
50 replace the @ with an & in glyph
60 write that in the place of <symbol>
70 goto 20