Outputting HTML entities in JavaScript

Question

I'm struggling with the simple syntax of outputting HTML entities.

For the sake of simplicity:

document.write("&eacute;");

I want to output é as é.

I've tried it with quotation marks, apostrophes, and no marks.

The only way I've managed to get it to work is /é/ but that outputs /é/.

Can somebody inform me of the correct way of doing this (and if possible explain why the slashes are doing their thing)?

I'm not familiar with jQuery so I'd appreciate if you keep answers in core JavaScript.

https://jsfiddle.net/e2ezz2h1/

Don't use `document.write`, use `innerHTML` (if you want to use entities) or `textContent` (if you want to keep the ampersands) — Bergi, Sep 14 '16 at 14:20
I'm actually trying to write it into a textbox's `value` rather than its `innerHTML`. https://jsfiddle.net/esqrg8Lc/ — Rilke, Sep 14 '16 at 14:30
Non-jQuery answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1395954/74757 — Cᴏʀʏ, Sep 14 '16 at 14:42
@Rilke for that, you should just use `"é"`. Where are you getting the entity from? — Bergi, Sep 14 '16 at 15:31

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

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Based on this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/9609450/2637098 and the additional information you provided, this code should suit your needs.

var element = document.createElement('div');
element.innerHTML = "H&eacute;llo world!";

document.getElementById('demo1').value = element.textContent;
element.textContent = '';

<input type="text" id="demo1" />

edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

Community

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answered Sep 14 '16 at 14:36

Maarten Bicknese

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 14 '16 at 14:18

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You have to escape the ampersand with &:

document.write("&amp;eacute;");

answered Sep 14 '16 at 14:18

Michał Perłakowski

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Wouldn't you need to escape that ampersand as well? I think you should try `\é` but the idea is correct! – Maarten Bicknese Sep 14 '16 at 14:19
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@MaartenBicknese There's no escaping with ```\``` in html, and you don't need to escape `&`s in JS string literals – Bergi Sep 14 '16 at 14:20
@DarrenSweeney It works fine for me. What browser are you using? – Michał Perłakowski Sep 14 '16 at 14:22
Chrome 52.0.2743.116 - If I use jquery it works though `$('.test').html('é');` – StudioTime Sep 14 '16 at 14:23
@Bergi it certainly does make a difference on OSX + Firefox. Given answer does not work for me, yet `document.write("\é");` does. – Maarten Bicknese Sep 14 '16 at 14:26
@MaartenBicknese that sounds like FF is broken. – Bergi Sep 14 '16 at 15:33

Outputting HTML entities in JavaScript

2 Answers2