How to stop an html TEXTAREA from decoding html entities

Question

I have a strange problem:

In the database, I have a literal ampersand lt semicolon:

<div  

whenever its printed into a html

Answer 1

You can serve your DB-content from a separate page and then place it in the textarea using a Javascript (jQuery) Ajax-call:

request = $.ajax
({  
    type: "GET",
    url: "url-with-the-troubled-content.php",           
    success: function(data)
    {
        document.getElementById('id-of-text-area').value = data;    
    }
}); 

Explained at

http://www.endtask.net/how-to-prevent-a-textarea-element-from-decoding-html-entities/