Removing HTML Special Characters

In an attempt to generate an RSS feed file, you have employed the strip_tags function to eliminate HTML tags from your application. However, you have encountered a shortcoming: strip_tags fails to remove HTML special code characters such as " ", "&", and "©".

To address this issue, consider utilizing alternative functions such as html_entity_decode, which decodes these special characters. Additionally, you can employ regular expressions through preg_replace:

$Content = preg_replace("/&#?[a-z0-9] ;/i","",$Content);

This expression targets the HTML character codes by matching strings that match the "©" format. By replacing these matches with an empty string, you effectively remove the special characters from your content.

Alternatively, to enhance precision, you can specify a stricter character limit for the replacement:

$Content = preg_replace("/&#?[a-z0-9]{2,8};/i","",$Content);

This modification limits the character range for matching, reducing the likelihood of accidentally replacing text that contains the "&" character alone.