parsing xml cdata

[Drumminxx]

Why do I get these strange characters after parsing some xml

this is what an xml item looks like:

[code]<blurb><![CDATA[ATTIK Leeds creates key art for flagship game – BLACK.]]></blurb>[/code]

now the dash you see above "game - BLACK"

comes back like this

ATTIK Leeds creates key art for flagship game [b]–[/b] BLACK.

I found success using str_replace but is there a built-in function I could be using?
I couldn't find it if there is...

[Branden Wagner]

what are you using to parse the xml?

[OOP]

check the characters set you are using in your XML document

[Drumminxx]

I'm thinking that these are some mac characters, them New Yorkers always got to be different and can't just use a PC, but then I don't know much about mac's anyway so I could be wrong.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

heres how I'm parsing the xml minus the start, end and data functions
[code]
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser,XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,false);//this could probably go but...

xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "client_startTag", "client_endTag");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "client_tagData");
$file = '../en-us/xml/'.$sub_cat_id[$i][3];
$data = xml_parse($xml_parser,file_get_contents($file));
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

if(!$data) {
  die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));

[/code]

now I've tried several encode, decode functions php offers I just can't seem to find one that works right.
here are some functions that I'm using that works just so you can see what kind of characters i'm dealing with

[code]
function fixchars($text) {
$bad = array('’','–','‘');
$good = array('&rsquo;','&ndash;','&rsquo;');
$text = str_replace($bad, $good, $text);
return $text;
}

function bfixchars($text) {
$bad = array('’','–','‘');
$good = array('’','-','’');
$text = str_replace($bad, $good, $text);
return $text;
}

[/code]