Why doesn't this use of html_decode_entities work?

Question

This code is adapted from the PHP manual entry on html_entity_decode()

protected function decode($data)
{
    $data = html_entity_decode($data, ENT_QUOTES,'UTF-8');
    //echo $data;
    return $data;
}
protected function decode_data($data)
{

    if(is_object($data) || is_array($data)){
        array_walk_recursive($data,array($this,'decode'));
    }else{
        $data = html_entity_decode($data, ENT_QUOTES,'UTF-8');
    }
    return $data;
}

If data contains an a value like Children's it does not get decoded to Children's

Daniel Gimenez · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-06 15:55:29Z

1

The problem has nothing to do with html_entity_decode, you're doing that right if you want to decode just quote entities, even those like '.

Instead your problem is that you weren't using array_walk_recursive correctly. In the following I used an anonymous function and pass the value as a reference:

function decode_data($data)
{
    if(is_object($data) || is_array($data)){
        // &$val, not $val, otherwise the array value wouldn't update.
        array_walk_recursive($data, function(&$val, $index) {
            $val = html_entity_decode($val, ENT_QUOTES,'UTF-8');
        });
    }else{
        $data = html_entity_decode($data, ENT_QUOTES,'UTF-8');
    }
    return $data;
}
$array = [
     "Children&#39;s",
     "Children&#39;s",
];
print_r( decode_data($array) );

Outputs both Children's as a single quote character and not as entity.

edited Mar 6, 2014 at 15:55

answered Mar 6, 2014 at 14:03

Daniel Gimenez

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1 Comment

codecowboy Over a year ago

Thanks, this sorted it.

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