PHP wordpress string formatting error

I have a bit of PHP where I want to store a URL in a string. The code itself seems fine, but for some reason, when I use the characters $sectionId=, it causes problems, in fact, it alters $sectionId= and changes it to §ionId=.

If I misspell it to $secionId then it works fine.

The full url SHOULD be:

http://url.com/file.php?appKey=$appkey&storeId=$storeid&sectionId=$sectionid&v=3

but when I do an echo $myURL; on it, it gives me:

http://url.com/file.php?appKey=$appkey&storeId=$storeid§ionId=$sectionid&v=3

Notice the §ionId= instead of $sectionId=.

Can anyone help me with this? It seems like basic PHP, but I don't understand why it just doesnt like those 4开发者_开发百科 or 5 characters in a row!!

Thanks.

Are you echoing it right to HTML? Well, some over-helpful browsers will do character conversions without being asked explicitly to with a semicolon; all you need to do is run it through htmlentities or replace all &s with & and it will display correctly.