Unescape HTML entities in Javascript?

Question

I have some Javascript code that communicates with an XML-RPC backend. The XML-RPC returns strings of the form:

Answer 1

You're welcome...just a messenger...full credit goes to ourcodeworld.com, link below.

window.htmlentities = {
        /**
         * Converts a string to its html characters completely.
         *
         * @param {String} str String with unescaped HTML characters
         **/
        encode : function(str) {
            var buf = [];

            for (var i=str.length-1;i>=0;i--) {
                buf.unshift(['&#', str[i].charCodeAt(), ';'].join(''));
            }

            return buf.join('');
        },
        /**
         * Converts an html characterSet into its original character.
         *
         * @param {String} str htmlSet entities
         **/
        decode : function(str) {
            return str.replace(/&#(\d+);/g, function(match, dec) {
                return String.fromCharCode(dec);
            });
        }
    };

Full Credit: https://ourcodeworld.com/articles/read/188/encode-and-decode-html-entities-using-pure-javascript