<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Convert special HTML entities back to characters</title> </head> <body><div class="manualnavbar" style="text-align: center;"> <div class="prev" style="text-align: left; float: left;"><a href="function.htmlentities.html">htmlentities</a></div> <div class="next" style="text-align: right; float: right;"><a href="function.htmlspecialchars.html">htmlspecialchars</a></div> <div class="up"><a href="ref.strings.html">String Functions</a></div> <div class="home"><a href="index.html">PHP Manual</a></div> </div><hr /><div id="function.htmlspecialchars-decode" class="refentry"> <div class="refnamediv"> <h1 class="refname">htmlspecialchars_decode</h1> <p class="verinfo">(PHP 5 >= 5.1.0)</p><p class="refpurpose"><span class="refname">htmlspecialchars_decode</span> — <span class="dc-title"> Convert special HTML entities back to characters </span></p> </div> <div class="refsect1 description" id="refsect1-function.htmlspecialchars-decode-description"> <h3 class="title">Description</h3> <div class="methodsynopsis dc-description"> <span class="type">string</span> <span class="methodname"><strong>htmlspecialchars_decode</strong></span> ( <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">string</span> <code class="parameter">$string</code></span> [, <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">int</span> <code class="parameter">$flags</code><span class="initializer"> = ENT_COMPAT | ENT_HTML401</span></span> ] )</div> <p class="para rdfs-comment"> This function is the opposite of <span class="function"><a href="function.htmlspecialchars.html" class="function">htmlspecialchars()</a></span>. It converts special HTML entities back to characters. </p> <p class="para"> The converted entities are: <em>&amp;</em>, <em>&quot;</em> (when <strong><code>ENT_NOQUOTES</code></strong> is not set), <em>&#039;</em> (when <strong><code>ENT_QUOTES</code></strong> is set), <em>&lt;</em> and <em>&gt;</em>. </p> </div> <div class="refsect1 parameters" id="refsect1-function.htmlspecialchars-decode-parameters"> <h3 class="title">Parameters</h3> <p class="para"> <dl> <dt> <span class="term"><em><code class="parameter">string</code></em></span> <dd> <p class="para"> The string to decode. </p> </dd> </dt> <dt> <span class="term"><em><code class="parameter">flags</code></em></span> <dd> <p class="para"> A bitmask of one or more of the following flags, which specify how to handle quotes and which document type to use. The default is <em>ENT_COMPAT | ENT_HTML401</em>. <table class="doctable table"> <caption><strong>Available <em><code class="parameter">flags</code></em> constants</strong></caption> <thead> <tr> <th>Constant Name</th> <th>Description</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody class="tbody"> <tr> <td><strong><code>ENT_COMPAT</code></strong></td> <td>Will convert double-quotes and leave single-quotes alone.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong><code>ENT_QUOTES</code></strong></td> <td>Will convert both double and single quotes.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong><code>ENT_NOQUOTES</code></strong></td> <td>Will leave both double and single quotes unconverted.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong><code>ENT_HTML401</code></strong></td> <td> Handle code as HTML 4.01. </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong><code>ENT_XML1</code></strong></td> <td> Handle code as XML 1. </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong><code>ENT_XHTML</code></strong></td> <td> Handle code as XHTML. </td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong><code>ENT_HTML5</code></strong></td> <td> Handle code as HTML 5. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </p> </dd> </dt> </dl> </p> </div> <div class="refsect1 returnvalues" id="refsect1-function.htmlspecialchars-decode-returnvalues"> <h3 class="title">Return Values</h3> <p class="para"> Returns the decoded string. </p> </div> <div class="refsect1 changelog" id="refsect1-function.htmlspecialchars-decode-changelog"> <h3 class="title">Changelog</h3> <p class="para"> <table class="doctable informaltable"> <thead> <tr> <th>Version</th> <th>Description</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody class="tbody"> <tr> <td>5.4.0</td> <td> The constants <strong><code>ENT_HTML401</code></strong>, <strong><code>ENT_XML1</code></strong>, <strong><code>ENT_XHTML</code></strong> and <strong><code>ENT_HTML5</code></strong> were added. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </p> </div> <div class="refsect1 examples" id="refsect1-function.htmlspecialchars-decode-examples"> <h3 class="title">Examples</h3> <p class="para"> <div class="example" id="example-4838"> <p><strong>Example #1 A <span class="function"><strong>htmlspecialchars_decode()</strong></span> example</strong></p> <div class="example-contents"> <div class="phpcode"><code><span style="color: #000000"> <span style="color: #0000BB"><?php<br />$str </span><span style="color: #007700">= </span><span style="color: #DD0000">"<p>this -&gt; &quot;</p>\n"</span><span style="color: #007700">;<br /><br />echo </span><span style="color: #0000BB">htmlspecialchars_decode</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$str</span><span style="color: #007700">);<br /><br /></span><span style="color: #FF8000">// note that here the quotes aren't converted<br /></span><span style="color: #007700">echo </span><span style="color: #0000BB">htmlspecialchars_decode</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$str</span><span style="color: #007700">, </span><span style="color: #0000BB">ENT_NOQUOTES</span><span style="color: #007700">);<br /></span><span style="color: #0000BB">?></span> </span> </code></div> </div> <div class="example-contents"><p>The above example will output:</p></div> <div class="example-contents screen"> <div class="cdata"><pre> <p>this -> "</p> <p>this -> &quot;</p> </pre></div> </div> </div> </p> </div> <div class="refsect1 seealso" id="refsect1-function.htmlspecialchars-decode-seealso"> <h3 class="title">See Also</h3> <p class="para"> <ul class="simplelist"> <li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.htmlspecialchars.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">htmlspecialchars()</a> - Convert special characters to HTML entities</span></li> <li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.html-entity-decode.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">html_entity_decode()</a> - Convert all HTML entities to their applicable characters</span></li> <li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.get-html-translation-table.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">get_html_translation_table()</a> - Returns the translation table used by htmlspecialchars and htmlentities</span></li> </ul> </p> </div> </div><hr /><div class="manualnavbar" style="text-align: center;"> <div class="prev" style="text-align: left; float: left;"><a href="function.htmlentities.html">htmlentities</a></div> <div class="next" style="text-align: right; float: right;"><a href="function.htmlspecialchars.html">htmlspecialchars</a></div> <div class="up"><a href="ref.strings.html">String Functions</a></div> <div class="home"><a href="index.html">PHP Manual</a></div> </div></body></html>