The same content after pressing the button

[Guest __Chris]

Hello!
I have maybe a common, maybe not problem.

Let's say:
I want to create a script, that will display the content I have written in textarea form field. Of course with 0-9a-z and white chars there is no problem with it. Simply stripslashes(), htmlspecialchars() and nl2br(). But... If I want to store such a content: "« [AND]laquo; [AND]#171;" ([AND] = &).

After I pressed the button I want to see it in the same outlook I have written. But in this case I can't. This special string - "«" is automatically converted to: [AND]#171; so how to distinguish what was a real special character and what was a character reference?

If you don't understand what I mean click reply, put this content "« [AND]laquo; [AND]#171;" in textarea form field, and what you get after all.

I will be extreamly greatful to someone who tell me the solution of this problem.