[xml] how-to ignore entities in text?

[Michael Cronenworth <mike cchtml com>]

Is there a way to ignore a "&" character contained inside of an XML tag? 
Normally this is used for entities, but I have a use for an XML tag to 
contain an "&" in this example:

<password>e$az_3{&dpp</password>

A random hash for a password might contain an "&" and this will normally 
throw a parsing error. I have attempted to use SAX2, xmlParse, and 
xmlReader with the option "XML_PARSE_NOENT" turned on and it still 
errors, but I guess I don't understand that option or if this is even 
possible. I've sifted through Google and the only result[1] that is 
relavent was a suggestion to use text parsing instead of XML parsing...

Thanks,
Michael

[1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2008-March/msg00007.html