Check whether the numeric entities are captured even if htmlEntities is set to false.

>>>>templates/test.tpl
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<foo>
&amp;
&#184;
&#xb8;
</foo>

>>>>data.php
$this->tpl->htmlEntities=false;

>>>>expected.txt
OUTPUT

>>>>result.txt
<foo>
&amp;
¸
¸
</foo>