How to properly encode HTML within XML in PHP for SOAP

Question

I'm attempting to communicate with Exchange 2007, and there are known bugs/problems with doing UpdateItem() so I'm manually communicating over cURL, building my own XML instead of letting the SOAP client do it. It all works fine, but I need to be able to properly encode HTML to fit within the elements of XML.

I know about html_encode() and htmlspecialchars() but I am unsure whether or not these are proper to use and whether or not in the future it may not encode correctly, and screw up the SOAP communication.

As a side note, if it matters, the communication will be in both English and Russian, so it needs to be Unicode safe.

I'm not sure, I can't seem to find any examples of CDATA being used with Exchange 2007 SOAP. — The Real Roxette
– The Real Roxette, Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 15:11
It's updating calendar event information in Exchange which is HTML 4.01, even then it has to be encoded. Like <br> to >br< — The Real Roxette
– The Real Roxette, Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 17:53

Sjoerd · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-15 15:07:20Z

2

Html_encode will use HTML entities. HTML entities are defined for HTML, but not for XML, so this won't work.

Escaping tags in XML is done by wrapping your content in CDATA tags. Special characters (üéâä) can be represented in UTF8.

answered Jul 15, 2011 at 15:07

Sjoerd

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2 Comments

Gordon Over a year ago

nitpicks: htmlspecialchars would work tough. Wrapping the content into CDATA tags is not "escaping".

The Real Roxette Over a year ago

After a lot of searching and testing, htmlspecialchars actually seems to work, but Exchange doesn't seem to like CDATA in the particular elements I've attempted to use it in.

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