htmlspecialchars in php not decoding

Question

I have a application where I store sting as it is but while dispying, I want special characters to be converted to their HTML name like for < will be &lt. To achieve it, I am using php inbuilt function htmlspecialchars.

Output of text with this function is achieved with following code

$reviewTxt = htmlspecialchars($reviewTxt);
echo $reviewTxt;

Now, for reviewTxt to be 'I loved you <3', it should produce I loved you <3 but should display the original text. In my case, it displays the encoded data I loved you <3. I also tried to paste I loved you <3 instead of above php code just to see if I can get original text and yes, it shows 'I loved you <3'.

I am not sure what I am missing,

The conversion from < to >should be done by your web browser. Are you using your web browser to view the output of your php script? — mti2935
– mti2935, Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 20:53

jeroen · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-19 20:53:07Z

1

It looks like you are encoding twice with htmlspecialchars() / htmlentities().

That causes the & symbol of the first result to be encoded in the second result, giving you a string like I loved you &lt;3.

So it will show the encoded & followed by the litteral string lt;.

answered Nov 19, 2014 at 20:53

jeroen

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