htmlspecialchars_decode() function in PHP

The html_special_chars_decode() function is used to convert convert special HTML entities back to characters.

The following are the HTML entities that will be decoded −

• & amp; becomes & (ampersand)

• & quot; becomes " (double quote)

• & #039; becomes ' (single quote)

• & lt; becomes < (less than)

• & gt; becomes > (greater than)

Syntax

htmlspecialchars_decode(str,flags)

Parameters

• str − The string to decode

• flags − Specifies how to handle quotes and which document type to use.

• The following are the quote styles are −

  • ENT_COMPAT - Default. Decodes only double quotes

  • ENT_QUOTES - Decodes double and single quotes

  • ENT_NOQUOTES - Does not decode any quotes

• Additional flags for specifying the used doctype −

  • ENT_HTML401 - Default. Handle code as HTML 4.01

  • ENT_HTML5 - Handle code as HTML 5

  • ENT_XML1 - Handle code as XML 1

  • ENT_XHTML - Handle code as XHTML

Return

The htmlspecialchars_decode() function returns the converted string.

The following is an example −

Example

<?php
$s = "<p>this -> "keyword in programming language</p>\n";
echo htmlspecialchars_decode($s);
echo htmlspecialchars_decode($s, ENT_NOQUOTES);
?>

The following is the output −

Output

<p>this -> "keyword in programming language</p>
<p>this -> "keyword in programming language</p>