How can I decode HTML characters in C#?

Question

I have email addresses encoded with HTML character entities. Is there anything in .NET that can convert them to plain strings?

Answer 1

You can use HttpUtility.HtmlDecode

If you are using .NET 4.0+ you can also use WebUtility.HtmlDecode which does not require an extra assembly reference as it is available in the System.Net namespace.

Answer 2

Use Server.HtmlDecode to decode the HTML entities. If you want to escape the HTML, i.e. display the < and > character to the user, use Server.HtmlEncode.

Answer 3

To decode HTML take a look below code

string s = "Svendborg Værft A/S";
string a = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(s);
Response.Write(a);

Output is like

 Svendborg Værft A/S

Answer 4

For .net 4.0

Add a reference to System.net.dll to the project with using System.Net; then use the following extensions

// Html encode/decode
    public static string HtmDecode(this string htmlEncodedString)
    {
        if(htmlEncodedString.Length > 0)
        {
            return System.Net.WebUtility.HtmlDecode(htmlEncodedString);
        }
        else
        {
            return htmlEncodedString;
        }
    }

    public static string HtmEncode(this string htmlDecodedString)
    {
        if(htmlDecodedString.Length > 0)
        {
            return System.Net.WebUtility.HtmlEncode(htmlDecodedString);
        }
        else
        {
            return htmlDecodedString;
        }
    }

Answer 5

If there is no Server context (i.e your running offline), you can use HttpUtility.HtmlDecode.

Answer 6

Write static a method into some utility class, which accept string as parameter and return the decoded html string.

Include the using System.Web.HttpUtility into your class

public static string HtmlEncode(string text)
    {
        if(text.length > 0){

           return HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(text);
        }else{

         return text;
        }

    }