Different result of XML parser in different environment, WHY?

Question

<?php
$xml = <<< AAA
<test>c đưa lên 1 -&gt; 10 k</test>
AAA;
$p = xml_parser_create();
xml_parse_into_struct($p, $xml, $vals, $index);
xml_parser_free($p);
print_r($vals);

I can get differnt result why? In my PC the result is

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [tag] => TEST
            [type] => complete
            [level] => 1
            [value] => c đưa lên 1 -> 10 k
        )

)

In the procuction environment, the resut is

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [tag] => TEST
            [type] => complete
            [level] => 1
            [value] => c đưa lên 1 - 10 k
        )

)

The > is disappear. Why?

Answer 1

Seems to be an encoding problem.

Answer 2

Sometimes, when you switch environments, you will see some differences related to text encoding and other internationlization-related gotchas. So you can try explicitly setting an encoding in the xml_parser_create function.

Another thing to consider is PHP versions. Run a phpinfo() from both environments and check the versions there. It may be that the PHP version production is using is coded to ignore HTML entities (>) ... just a guess.

EDIT:
According to this bug report, this behavior of ignoring HTML entities can be cause by libxml2. Try updating libxml2 on the production server to the latest version.