Creating PHP -> XML with special character '&' - php

Question

I'm trying to create an XML from PHP with special characters.
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ' . 'standalone="yes"?><Root/>');
$data->addChild('NAME', $variable);
$dom = new DOMDocument('1.0');
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$dom->formatOutput = true;
$dom->loadXML($xmlAusgabe = $xml->asXML());
$dom->save('../test.xml');
When there is a special character like '&' in it the output is empty.
I thought these characters are available in UTF-8.
Can someone help me?

Answer 1

When embed XML, always there are many problems :( try this:
Change
$dom->loadXML($xmlAusgabe = $xml->asXML());
by
$xmlAusgabe = $xml->asXML();
$xmlAusgabe = mb_convert_encoding( $xmlAusgabe, 'HTML-ENTITIES', 'UTF-8') ;
$dom->loadXML( $xmlAusgabe );
Then check encoding and fileencoding is utf8. If you use vim editor:
set encoding=utf-8
set fileencoding=utf-8
UPDATE
libxml_use_internal_errors( FALSE );
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><Root/>');
$data->addChild('NAME', mb_convert_encoding( $variable, 'HTML-ENTITIES', 'UTF-8') );
$xmlAusgabe = $xml->asXML();
$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadXML( $xmlAusgabe );
$dom->save('../test.xml');
I check this code and run. To print error use:
libxml_get_errors()