diff --git a/ext/xmlreader/php_xmlreader.c b/ext/xmlreader/php_xmlreader.c
index e1012ccb0d5..0076f5ce741 100644
--- a/ext/xmlreader/php_xmlreader.c
+++ b/ext/xmlreader/php_xmlreader.c
@@ -1094,16 +1094,22 @@ PHP_METHOD(xmlreader, XML)
 	int source_len = 0, encoding_len = 0;
 	long options = 0;
 	xmlreader_object *intern = NULL;
-	char *source, *uri = NULL, *encoding = NULL;
+	zstr source;
+	char *uri = NULL, *encoding = NULL;
 	int resolved_path_len;
 	char *directory=NULL, resolved_path[MAXPATHLEN];
 	xmlParserInputBufferPtr inputbfr;
 	xmlTextReaderPtr reader = NULL;
+	zend_uchar source_type;
 
-	if (zend_parse_parameters(ZEND_NUM_ARGS() TSRMLS_CC, "S|s!l", &source, &source_len, &encoding, &encoding_len, &options) == FAILURE) {
+	if (zend_parse_parameters(ZEND_NUM_ARGS() TSRMLS_CC, "t|s!l", &source, &source_len, &source_type, &encoding, &encoding_len, &options) == FAILURE) {
 		return;
 	}
 
+	if (source_type == IS_UNICODE) {
+		source.s = php_libxml_unicode_to_string(source.u, source_len, &source_len TSRMLS_CC);
+	}
+
 	id = getThis();
 	if (id != NULL && ! instanceof_function(Z_OBJCE_P(id), xmlreader_class_entry TSRMLS_CC)) {
 		id = NULL;
@@ -1118,7 +1124,11 @@ PHP_METHOD(xmlreader, XML)
 		RETURN_FALSE;
 	}
 
-	inputbfr = xmlParserInputBufferCreateMem(source, source_len, XML_CHAR_ENCODING_NONE);
+	inputbfr = xmlParserInputBufferCreateMem(source.s, source_len, XML_CHAR_ENCODING_NONE);
+
+	if (source_type == IS_UNICODE) {
+		efree(source.s);
+	}
 
     if (inputbfr != NULL) {
 /* Get the URI of the current script so that we can set the base directory in libxml */
diff --git a/ext/xmlreader/tests/008.phpt b/ext/xmlreader/tests/008.phpt
index 18c8dba73dc..aee3932216b 100644
--- a/ext/xmlreader/tests/008.phpt
+++ b/ext/xmlreader/tests/008.phpt
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ $xmlstring = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
 </MOVIE>
 </LIST>';
 
-$dtdfile = rawurlencode(dirname(__FILE__)) . b'/dtdexample.dtd'; 
+$dtdfile = rawurlencode((binary)dirname(__FILE__)) . b'/dtdexample.dtd'; 
 $file = dirname(__FILE__) . '/__008.xml';
 file_put_contents($file, $xmlstring);