Convert html into decimal codes

[ocon]

I have a string that looks like this:

$str="<title>Title</title>";

However, I need it to look like this:

$str="&#60;title&#62;Title&#60;/title&#62;";

Currently I'm using the following code to convert the former to the latter:

$old=array("\"","<",">");
$new=array("&#34;","&#60;","&#62;");
$title=str_replace($old,$new,"<title>Title</title>");

Is there a built in function to do this for me?

rawurlencode, and urlencode don't work for what I need, is there one that might?

[eeek]

[php.net...]

[ocon]

Thank you for the link.

I also have tried using htmlspecialchars, but it converts some characters such as brackets into &lt; and &gt;

Are there any functions, or options of htmlspecialchars that forces the conversion into decimal codes only?

[eeek]

Why?