PHP SimpleXML - Adding Text from forms to XML

[username]

Hi all,

I'm trying to find a tried and tested method of adding user generated text into XML. An example would be a user types some text into a text area, posts it to a php page, then I check the text for html characters and add it to the XML.

My issue, is that the XML is breaking because some non allowed characters are getting through. I have tried:

• strip_tags - to remove html[/li]
  
• htmlspecialchars - to convert non xml approved characters to acceptable character[/li]
  

I would like to ideally keep the html in the text if possible. Does anyone have a good method of processing text for addition to XML?

Thanks

[Readie]

Have you tried wrapping the user defined content in <[CDATA[ ]]> tags?

<xml_element_name><[CDATA[user defined content]]></xml_element_name>