HTML Entity Decode [duplicate]

Answer 1

Inspired by Robert K's solution, strips html tags and prevents executing scripts and eventhandlers like: Tested on latest Chrome, FF, IE (should work from IE9, but haven't tested).

var decodeEntities = (function () {
        //create a new html document (doesn't execute script tags in child elements)
        var doc = document.implementation.createHTMLDocument("");
        var element = doc.createElement('div');

        function getText(str) {
            element.innerHTML = str;
            str = element.textContent;
            element.textContent = '';
            return str;
        }

        function decodeHTMLEntities(str) {
            if (str && typeof str === 'string') {
                var x = getText(str);
                while (str !== x) {
                    str = x;
                    x = getText(x);
                }
                return x;
            }
        }
        return decodeHTMLEntities;
    })();

Simply call:

decodeEntities('');
decodeEntities("");