How to decode HTML entities

Question

I have string variable with HTML entities:

var str = \'Some text & text\';

I want to convert (decode) it to original characters:

<

Answer 1

You can use built-in Xml Services:

var str = 'Some text & text';
var decode = XmlService.parse('<d>' + str + '</d>');
var strDecoded = decode.getElement().getText();

or you can use built-in E4X XML class.

var str = 'Some text & text';
var decode = new XML('<d>' + str + '</d>');
var strDecoded = decode.toString();