encoding for sitmap

[timgolding]

I am dynamically creating a sitemap.xml to help google index my pages correctly. Because the sitemap will be generated by PHP and it has to be encoded in UTF-8. Is there any way i can get my PHP script to write the file in UTF-8

[mlseim]

Don't you just have your PHP script write something like this to a file?

This example is an XML for MP3 playlist, but the idea is that the first
line defines the encoding. The code itself is just a text file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xml:lang="EN" version="2.0">
<channel>
...
Everything in here
...
</channel></rss>

When that text file is read by the browser ... that's when it's encoded based on utf-8.

[timgolding]

Surley the text in the file has to be UTF-8

[mlseim]

Surley the text in the file has to be UTF-8

???

a text file is a text file is a text file ...

When a server opens a text file and sends it to a user's browser,
it is encoded by whatever encoding instructions it is given ...

See this site:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Create your own XML sitemap for your own site, then view the XML file.
Notice the very top line.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
- <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">
- <url>


The XML file itself is just a text file (ASCII).

Maybe you're talking about something I've never heard of?
Does anyone else know what I'm not seeing here?