I have email addresses encoded with HTML character entities. Is there anything in .NET that can convert them to plain strings?
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10 Answers
You can use HttpUtility.HtmlDecode.
If you are using .NET 4.0+ you can also use WebUtility.HtmlDecode which does not require an extra assembly reference as it is available in the System.Net namespace.
answered Sep 23, 2008 at 18:02
Quintin Robinson
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3 Comments
OwenP
Add a reference to System.Web.Dll in your project properties. The classes you see live in System.dll which is referenced by default.
PeterX
In case you're trying trying to decode the Query String, you need to use
HttpUtility.UrlDecode
jazzcat
does not decode é none of the answers do. HtmlUtility/WebUtility cannot do this.
On .Net 4.0:
System.Net.WebUtility.HtmlDecode()
No need to include assembly for a C# project
4 Comments
RredCat
It is better solution because HttpUtility doesn't decode "'" symbol.. I don't know why..
matthewsheets
This is required in developing for the Universal Windows platform.
Senura Dissanayake
Will this cause XSS in .Net web pages?
Vincent Flotron
Thanks. Exactly what I was looking for
As @CQ says, you need to use HttpUtility.HtmlDecode, but it's not available in a non-ASP .NET project by default.
For a non-ASP .NET application, you need to add a reference to System.Web.dll. Right-click your project in Solution Explorer, select "Add Reference", then browse the list for System.Web.dll.
Now that the reference is added, you should be able to access the method using the fully-qualified name System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlDecode or insert a using statement for System.Web to make things easier.
Comments
To decode HTML take a look below code
string s = "Svendborg Værft A/S";
string a = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(s);
Response.Write(a);
Output is like
Svendborg Værft A/S
1 Comment
Justin
The 'ToString()' is redundant since HtmlDecode returns a string
If there is no Server context (i.e your running offline), you can use HttpUtility.HtmlDecode.
1 Comment
Quintin Robinson
Agreed, that's why I use HttpUtility, fell into same trap =P
It is also worth mentioning that if you're using HtmlAgilityPack like I was, you should use HtmlAgilityPack.HtmlEntity.DeEntitize(). It takes a string and returns a string.
Comments
Use Server.HtmlDecode to decode the HTML entities. If you want to escape the HTML, i.e. display the < and > character to the user, use Server.HtmlEncode.
1 Comment
Rob Cooper
There may not be a server context (i.e. when running test cases and the like) I fell in to this trap before :)
Write static a method into some utility class, which accept string as parameter and return the decoded html string.
Include the using System.Web.HttpUtility into your class
public static string HtmlEncode(string text)
{
if(text.length > 0){
return HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(text);
}else{
return text;
}
}
Comments
For .net 4.0
Add a reference to System.net.dll to the project with using System.Net; then use the following extensions
// Html encode/decode
public static string HtmDecode(this string htmlEncodedString)
{
if(htmlEncodedString.Length > 0)
{
return System.Net.WebUtility.HtmlDecode(htmlEncodedString);
}
else
{
return htmlEncodedString;
}
}
public static string HtmEncode(this string htmlDecodedString)
{
if(htmlDecodedString.Length > 0)
{
return System.Net.WebUtility.HtmlEncode(htmlDecodedString);
}
else
{
return htmlDecodedString;
}
}
Comments
For strings containing   I've had to double-decode the string. First decode would turn it into the second pass would correctly decode it to the expected character.
