From what I've seen elsewhere this is a common problem but I can't see a clear solution.

I get things like this:

BROADENING HORIZONS – ENGLAND TO ‘LEAD THE WORLD’ IN COMPUTER ACCESS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
22 Sep 2008 | 6:00 pm

I did try one fix which got rid of the spurious characters but outside the RSS feed module punctuation marks elsewhere on my page, like the page title' stopped displaying properly


Here's what my php file looks like, can anyone help by suggesting which lines could be modified to cure the problem once and for all? THanks!

<?php
/*
// "Simple RSS Feed Reader" Module for Joomla! 1.0.x & Mambo 4.5.x/4.6.x - Version 1.4
// License: www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
// Authors: Fotis Evangelou - George Chouliaras
// Copyright (c) 2006 - 2007 JoomlaWorks.net - www.joomlaworks.net
// Project page at www.joomlaworks.net - Demos at demo.joomlaworks.net
// ***Last update: October 26th, 2007***
*/

/** ensure this file is being included by a parent file */
defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Direct Access to this location is not allowed.' );

global $mosConfig_offset, $mosConfig_live_site, $mosConfig_absolute_path, $mosConfig_locale, $mainframe;

// module parameters
$moduleclass_sfx = $params->get( 'moduleclass_sfx','');
$srfr_cache = intval($params->get('srfr_cache',30));
$srfr_timeout = intval($params->get('srfr_timeout',10));
$srfr_fitems = intval($params->get('srfr_fitems',5));
$srfr_totalitems = intval($params->get('srfr_totalitems'));
$srfr_ftimezone = intval($params->get('srfr_ftimezone',0));
$srfr_fname = intval($params->get('srfr_fname',1));
$srfr_fititle = intval($params->get('srfr_fititle',1));
$srfr_fitime = intval($params->get('srfr_fitime',1));
$srfr_fi_content = $params->get('srfr_fi_content','none');
$srfr_fi_words = intval($params->get('srfr_fi_words',''));
$srfr_fi_hideimages = intval($params->get('srfr_fi_hideimages',0));
$striptags = intval($params->get('striptags',0));

$srfr_url01 = $params->get( 'srfr_url01', 'feeds.feedburner.com/joomlaworks' );
$srfr_url02 = $params->get( 'srfr_url02', '' );
$srfr_url03 = $params->get( 'srfr_url03', '' );
$srfr_url04 = $params->get( 'srfr_url04', '' );
$srfr_url05 = $params->get( 'srfr_url05', '' );
$srfr_url06 = $params->get( 'srfr_url06', '' );
$srfr_url07 = $params->get( 'srfr_url07', '' );
$srfr_url08 = $params->get( 'srfr_url08', '' );
$srfr_url09 = $params->get( 'srfr_url09', '' );
$srfr_url10 = $params->get( 'srfr_url10', '' );
$srfr_url11 = $params->get( 'srfr_url11', '' );
$srfr_url12 = $params->get( 'srfr_url12', '' );
$srfr_url13 = $params->get( 'srfr_url13', '' );
$srfr_url14 = $params->get( 'srfr_url14', '' );
$srfr_url15 = $params->get( 'srfr_url15', '' );
$srfr_url16 = $params->get( 'srfr_url16', '' );
$srfr_url17 = $params->get( 'srfr_url17', '' );
$srfr_url18 = $params->get( 'srfr_url18', '' );
$srfr_url19 = $params->get( 'srfr_url19', '' );
$srfr_url20 = $params->get( 'srfr_url20', '' );

// SimplePie Setup
if(!class_exists("SimplePie")){
    require_once($mosConfig_absolute_path.'/modules/mod_jw_srfr/simplepie.inc');
}
require_once($mosConfig_absolute_path.'/modules/mod_jw_srfr/idn/idna_convert.class.php');

// Call the feeds
$myfeeds = array();
$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url01.'';
if ($srfr_url02) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url02.'';}
if ($srfr_url03) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url03.'';}
if ($srfr_url04) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url04.'';}
if ($srfr_url05) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url05.'';}
if ($srfr_url06) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url06.'';}
if ($srfr_url07) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url07.'';}
if ($srfr_url08) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url08.'';}
if ($srfr_url09) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url09.'';}
if ($srfr_url10) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url10.'';}
if ($srfr_url11) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url11.'';}
if ($srfr_url12) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url12.'';}
if ($srfr_url13) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url13.'';}
if ($srfr_url14) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url14.'';}
if ($srfr_url15) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url15.'';}
if ($srfr_url16) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url16.'';}
if ($srfr_url17) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url17.'';}
if ($srfr_url18) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url18.'';}
if ($srfr_url19) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url19.'';}
if ($srfr_url20) {$myfeeds[] = ''.$srfr_url20.'';}

// This array will hold the items we'll be grabbing.
$first_items = array();

// Let's go through the array, feed by feed, and store the items we want.
foreach ($myfeeds as $url) {

    // Use the long syntax
    $feed = new SimplePie();
$feed->set_feed_url($url);

// Set timeout
$feed->set_timeout($srfr_timeout);

// Check if the cache folder exists
if(file_exists($mosConfig_absolute_path.'/cache')) {
$feed->enable_cache(true);
$feed->set_cache_duration($srfr_cache*60);
$feed->set_cache_location($mosConfig_absolute_path . '/cache');
} else {
$feed->enable_cache(false);
}

    $feed->init();

// As long as we're not trying to grab more items than the feed has, go through them one by one and add them to the array.
for ($x = 0; $x < $feed->get_item_quantity($srfr_fitems); $x++) {$first_items[] = $feed->get_item($x);}

    // We're done with this feed, so let's release some memory.
    unset($feed);
}

// We need to sort the items by date with a user-defined sorting function.
// Since usort() won't accept "SimplePie::sort_items", we need to wrap it in a new function.
if(!function_exists("sort_items")){
function sort_items($a, $b) {return SimplePie::sort_items($a, $b);}
}

// Now we can sort $first_items with our custom sorting function.
usort($first_items, "sort_items");

/*

---

Content Handling

---

*/

// Word limitation
if (!function_exists('word_limiter')) {
function word_limiter($str, $limit = 100, $end_char = '…') {
  if (trim($str) == '')
return $str;
  preg_match('/\s*(?:\S*\s*){'. (int) $limit .'}/', $str, $matches);
  if (strlen($matches[0]) == strlen($str))
$end_char = '';
  return rtrim($matches[0]).$end_char;
}
}

// OUTPUT
?>

<!-- JW "Simple RSS Feed Reader" Module (v1.4) starts here -->
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
var srfrCSS = '<' + 'style type="text/css" media="screen">'
+ '@import "modules/mod_jw_srfr/mod_jw_srfr.css";'
+ '</' + 'style>';
document.write(srfrCSS);
-->
</script>
<noscript>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="modules/mod_jw_srfr/mod_jw_srfr.css" />
</noscript>
<?php if ($feed->error){ echo '<span class="message">'.$feed->error().'</span>'; } ?>
<div id="srfr-container<?php echo $moduleclass_sfx; ?>">
  <ul class="srfr">
    <?php
if($srfr_totalitems) { $i=0; }
foreach($first_items as $key => $item) {
if($srfr_totalitems) {if($i>=$srfr_totalitems) continue;}
$feed = $item->get_feed();
?>
    <li class="srfr-row<?php echo ($key%2); ?>">
      <!-- feed item title -->
      <?php if($srfr_fititle) { ?>
      <a class="srfr-feed-title" target="_blank" href="<?php echo $item->get_permalink(); ?>">
  <?php echo $item->get_title(); ?>
      </a>
      <?php } ?>
      <!-- feed item timestamp -->
      <?php if($srfr_fitime) { ?>
      <span class="srfr-feed-timestamp">
      <?php
if($srfr_ftimezone) {
echo $item->get_date('G:i (\G\M\T) - j.m.Y'); // GMT timezone
} else {
echo $item->get_date('j M Y | g:i a'); // Local timezone
}
  ?>
      </span>
      <?php } ?>
      <!-- feed name -->
      <?php if($srfr_fname) { ?>
      <a class="srfr-feed-name" target="_blank" href="<?php echo $feed->get_permalink(); ?>">
  <?php echo $feed->get_title(); ?>
      </a>
      <?php } ?>
      <!-- feed item intro/full text -->
      <?php
// Assign
$introtext = $item->get_description();
$fulltext = $item->get_content();

// Remove images
if ($srfr_fi_hideimages) {
//$introtext = preg_replace("/<img[^>]+\>/i", "", $introtext);
//$fulltext = preg_replace("/<img[^>]+\>/i", "", $fulltext);
$introtext = preg_replace("/<img.+?>/", "", $introtext);
$fulltext = preg_replace("/<img.+?>/", "", $fulltext);
}

// HTML cleanup
$allowed_tags = "<img><p><br><a><b>"; // These tags will NOT be stripped off!
if ($striptags) {
$introtext = strip_tags($introtext, $allowed_tags);
$fulltext = strip_tags($fulltext, $allowed_tags);
}

// Word limitation
if ($srfr_fi_words) {
$introtext = word_limiter($item->get_description(),$srfr_fi_words);
$fulltext = word_limiter($item->get_content(),$srfr_fi_words);
}
  ?>     
  <?php if($srfr_fi_content=="intro") { ?>
      <p class="srfr-feed-intro"><?php echo $introtext; ?></p>
      <?php } ?>
  <?php if($srfr_fi_content=="full") { ?>
      <p class="srfr-feed-full"><?php echo $fulltext; ?></p>
      <?php } ?>
    </li>
    <?php
if($srfr_totalitems) { $i++; }
}
?>
  </ul>
</div>
<!-- JW "Simple RSS Feed Reader" Module (v1.4) ends here -->