note 65597 deleted from function.html-entity-decode by bjori

Note Submitter: jdephix_at_hotmail_dot_com ---- I had a very strange problem with html_entity_decode on a string which begins with < followed with a letter. <?php $str = "<option value='test'"; $s = htmlentities($str); $var = html_entity_decode($str, ENT_QUOTES); print $var; //nothing appears on screen (that's what it seems anyway) print strlen($var);//20, the actual string length! ?> So does it mean html_entity_decode returns a blank 20-character long string? Nope. <?php $str2 = "Test <option value='test'>Test value"; print strpos($str2, $str);//returns 5!! ?> If you tried the same thing with a string which begins with < followed with an integer ("<1test value='test'" for instance), the string is printed on screen. This is because no XML tags start with an integer. So what is happening when you pass a non-closed XML tag is that a string is returned, it is what one would expect (as the strpos test shows) but it is simply NOT printed! Now, bug or undocumented behaviour?