Stripping/Replacing Ampersand Sign

[modfiles]

Hi,
I'm using this snippet to strip/replace the & sign (i mostly get that error in my page if theres that sign in a string their but i dont like the result coz it shows & instead of & that wont give errors. Can anyone have a better one.

$search = array('&', '&');
$replace = array('&', '&');
$output  = & & & 
$result = str_replace($search, $replace, $output);
echo '$result';

& & & // POST RESULT No error on page

if its possible to post a result of:
& & & //No error

and sometimes, in a directory list (wapbuddy) if the filename is 1_&.jpg the snippet will rename the download link as 1_&.jpg which is not valid download already and will result to file not found.

[synergyx2009]

when inserting into db use:

$variable_a = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST["variable"]);
$variable_b = str_replace('&', "&", $variable_a);
$variable = htmlspecialchars($variable_b);

when calling from db use:

<?php $variable = unhtmlspecialchars($item[variable]); echo "$variable"; ?>

make sure you have following in core.php

function unhtmlspecialchars( $string )
        {
        $string = str_replace ( '&', '&', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( ''', '\'', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( '"', '"', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( '&lt;', '<', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( '&gt;', '>', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( '&uuml;', '?', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( '&auml;', '?', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( '&Auml;', '?', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( '&ouml;', '?', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( '&Ouml;', '?', $string );
        $string = str_replace ( "\'", "'", $string );
	return $string;
        }