When selecting a datetime field from mssql while the
following setting is active:

   ini_set('mssql.datetimeconvert', 0);

the field contains a trailing null character which causes
havoc when generating XML. 

Environment: SQL Server 2000

A workaround is to select the datatime field as CAST(.. AS CHAR). 

Example script to reproduce the problem: 

   ini_set('mssql.datetimeconvert', 0);
   $iLinkId = mssql_connect('server', 'username', 'pwd');
   mssql_select_db('database', $iLinkId);
   $iResultId = mssql_query(
     'SELECT TESTDATE FROM TEST WHERE TEST_ID = 1'
   );
   $aRow = mssql_fetch_array($iResultId);
   print $aRow[0] . '|';
   print strlen($aRow['TESTDATE']);
   print '|';
   print ord(
     $aRow['TESTDATE'][strlen($aRow['TESTDATE']) - 1]
   );
   print '<br>';
   mssql_close($iLinkId)

The output looks like this: 

   2002-12-31 00:00:00|20|0

indicating the string is 20 characters long, and the last character is a null character (\0).