[RESOLVED] convert HTML Entities into normal characters

**themarty** · 01-25-2007 11:02 AM

I'm using javascript to display some parts of the source-code from a webpage. This occasionaly contains HTML entities (& instead of &, é instead of é, etc.) I want to convert these entities (&, é) back into normal characters (&, é). Of course i can do this with String.replace(), but the list of entities is kinda long, so i was hoping there is a simpler way that i'm unaware of.
Anyone got any ideas?

**mrhoo** · 01-25-2007 12:12 PM

Put the text as is in an empty html element's innerHTML, then read the data value. No need to attach the element to the document tree.

function get_ents(str){
var temp=document.createElement("pre");
temp.innerHTML=str;
return temp.firstChild.nodeValue;
}
var str='Tom & Jerry';
get_ents(str) returns 'Tom & Jerry'.

**Ultimater** · 01-25-2007 12:49 PM

He's looking for a JavaScript equivalent of PHP's html_entity_decode function.

A first attempt but it seems to work fine in both Firefox and IE.

Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
function html_entity_decode(str){
/*Firefox (and IE if the string contains no elements surrounded by angle brackets )*/
  try{
  var ta=document.createElement("textarea");
  ta.innerHTML=str;
  return ta.value;
  }catch(e){};
/*Internet Explorer*/
  try{
  var d=document.createElement("div");
  d.innerHTML=str.replace(/</g,"&lt;").replace(/>/g,"&gt;");
  if(typeof d.innerText!="undefined")return d.innerText;/*Sadly this strips tags as well*/
  }catch(e){}
}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
alert( html_entity_decode("<span>&#191;Hablas bien el espa&ntilde;ol?</span>") );
</script>

**themarty** · 01-25-2007 02:42 PM

hey, that's a actually very clever solution

unfortunately i can not make use of it. i'm using it as part of an xul application (firefox extension), so i can't create any divs

**LeeU** · 01-25-2007 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by Ultimater

Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
function html_entity_decode(str){
/*Firefox (and IE if the string contains no elements surrounded by angle brackets )*/
  try{
  var ta=document.createElement("textarea");
  ta.innerHTML=str;
  return ta.value;
  }catch(e){};
/*Internet Explorer*/
  try{
  var d=document.createElement("div");
  d.innerHTML=str.replace(/</g,"&lt;").replace(/>/g,"&gt;");
  if(typeof d.innerText!="undefined")return d.innerText;/*Sadly this strips tags as well*/
  }catch(e){}
}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
alert( html_entity_decode("<span>&#191;Hablas bien el espa&ntilde;ol?</span>") );
</script>

Ah, another one for JSS???

**Ultimater** · 01-25-2007 05:49 PM

@themarty
Kinda lazy to give the script a valid doctype and get it to pass the validator but it runs nonetheless test.xul

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root xml:lang="en" xmlns:html='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<html:script type="text/javascript"><![CDATA[
function html_entity_decode(str){
var str1='<?xml version="1.0"?>\n'+
'<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"\n'+
'"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">\n'+
'<html:html xml:lang="en" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">\n';
var str2="</html:html>"
var e=(new DOMParser()).parseFromString(str1+(str.replace(/</g,"&lt;").replace(/>/g,"&gt;"))+str2, "text/xml")
return e.documentElement.textContent;
}
]]></html:script>
<html:script type="text/javascript"><![CDATA[
alert( html_entity_decode("<span>&#191;Hablas bien el espa&ntilde;ol?</span>") );
]]></html:script>
</root>

Pretty sloppy but it should open up some new ideas.

@LeeU, sure go ahead. For the link this time, please use my profile on the forums. http://webdeveloper.com/forum/member.php?u=30185

**themarty** · 01-26-2007 03:22 AM

Originally Posted by Ultimater

Pretty sloppy but it should open up some new ideas.

Yea, it definitely does!

that DOMParser object does the trick. In the end i only had to copy & paste just that function to my javascript file and it works like a charm.
Many thanks for this brilliant idea!

**Ultimater** · 01-26-2007 12:57 PM

Got html_entity_decode down to:

Code:

function html_entity_decode(str) {
 var ta=document.createElement("textarea");
 ta.innerHTML=str.replace(/</g,"&lt;").replace(/>/g,"&gt;");
 return ta.value;
}

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