Convert HTML entities from XML in JavaScript

Sometimes you get passed a string from XML and it can contain HTML entities like the following

&
<
>
"
©
®
«
»
'

If you write the string with JavaScript then you get something like didn't instead of didn’t

I’ve searched around for a function that could handle this but could not find one, so I wrote my own. I thought I’d share it with the world!

The following will convert & to &, convert ' to ‘ etc.

Following is the code, if you need help implementing it, I’m more than happy to explain how you install and run this function in return for a text link on your website, now that’s cheap as, considering I normally charge $140 an hour 😉

String.prototype.trim = function () {
	return this.split( /\s/ ).join( " " );
}
String.prototype.convertHTMLEntity = function () {
	var myString = this;
	myString = myString.replace( /\&/g, '&' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&lt;/g, '<' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&quot;/g, '"' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&copy;/g, '©' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&reg;/g, '®' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&laquo;/g, '«' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&raqou;/g, '»' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&apos;/g, "'" );
	return myString;
}