[CentOS] php DOMDocument and entities

This is not CentOS specific but I hope someone here knows so I do not have to subscribe to another list.

I'm using php DOMDocument to create an XSL that needs a non-breaking space between two values.

Basically:

$xslvalueof = $dom->createElement('xsl:value-of'); $xslvalueof->setAttribute('select', '../@month'); $caption->appendChild($xslvalueof); $nbsp = $dom->createTextNode(' '); $caption->appendChild($nbsp); $xslvalueof = $dom->createElement('xsl:value-of'); $xslvalueof->setAttribute('select', '../@year'); $caption->appendChild($xslvalueof);

That's what I am trying to do.

createTextNode() however tries to protect the users, and automatically turns any & into &

So I tried

$nbsp = $dom->createEntityReference('#160');

That however gives a dom error, it seems createEntityReference only works with named entities.

$nbsp = $dom->createEntityReference('nbsp');

works, but then I would have to modify the DTD for both XSL and the target XML because neither have nbsp defined.

How can I create the literal string ' ' using DOMDocument as a text node between two other nodes?

This is driving me nuts.

I could I suppose put it inside a span

&nbsp = $dom->createElement('span', ' ');

That works but is hackish. It seems to work though by generating the actual UTF8 character itself.

I really wish the XML spec itself had named entities for the various whitespace characters that tend to get eaten by XML parsers if not done as a numbered entity. Ah well.

Using   works just fine when the XSL is a text file. It is dynamically creating it via DOMDocument where I have a problem.

Thanks for any suggestions.