How to convert special HTML entities back to characters in PHP

Topic: PHP / MySQLPrev|Next

Answer: Use the PHP htmlspecialchars_decode() function

You can use the PHP htmlspecialchars_decode() function to convert the special HTML entities such as &, <, > etc. back to the normal characters (i.e. &, <, >).

The htmlspecialchars_decode() function is opposite of the htmlspecialchars() function which converts special HTML characters into HTML entities. Let's check out an example:

<?php
$my_str = "I&#039;ll come &amp; &lt;b&gt;&quot;get you&quot;&lt;/b&gt;.";
 
// Decode &amp;, &lt;, &gt; and &quot;
echo htmlspecialchars_decode($my_str);
 
// Decode &amp;, &lt;, &gt;, &quot; and &#039;
echo htmlspecialchars_decode($my_str, ENT_QUOTES);
 
// Decode &amp;, &lt; and &gt;
echo htmlspecialchars_decode($my_str, ENT_NOQUOTES);
?>

Related FAQ

Here are some more FAQ related to this topic:

• How to remove special characters form a string in PHP
• How to check if a string contains a specific word in PHP
• How to remove white space from a string in PHP