How to decode HTML entities using jQuery?

Security note: using this answer (preserved in its original form below) may introduce an XSS vulnerability into your application. You should not use this answer. Read lucascaro's answer for an explanation of the vulnerabilities in this answer, and use the approach from either that answer or Mark Amery's answer instead.

Actually, try

var encodedStr = "This is fun & stuff";
var decoded = $("<div/>").html(encodedStr).text();
console.log(decoded);

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div/>

I think you're confusing the text and HTML methods. Look at this example, if you use an element's inner HTML as text, you'll get decoded HTML tags (second button). But if you use them as HTML, you'll get the HTML formatted view (first button).

<div id="myDiv">
    here is a <b>HTML</b> content.
</div>
<br />
<input value="Write as HTML" type="button" onclick="javascript:$('#resultDiv').html($('#myDiv').html());" />
&nbsp;&nbsp;
<input value="Write as Text" type="button" onclick="javascript:$('#resultDiv').text($('#myDiv').html());" />
<br /><br />
<div id="resultDiv">
    Results here !
</div>

First button writes : here is a HTML content.

Second button writes : here is a <B>HTML</B> content.

By the way, you can see a plug-in that I found in jQuery plugin - HTML decode and encode that encodes and decodes HTML strings.

Try this :

var htmlEntities = "<script>alert('hello');</script>";
var htmlDecode =$.parseHTML(htmlEntities)[0]['wholeText'];
console.log(htmlDecode);

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

parseHTML is a Function in Jquery library and it will return an array that includes some details about the given String..

in some cases the String is being big, so the function will separate the content to many indexes..

and to get all the indexes data you should go to any index, then access to the index called "wholeText".

I chose index 0 because it's will work in all cases (small String or big string).

You don't need jQuery to solve this problem, as it creates a bit of overhead and dependency.

I know there are a lot of good answers here, but since I have implemented a bit different approach, I thought to share.

This code is a perfectly safe security-wise approach, as the escaping handler depends on the browser, instead on the function. So, if some vulnerability will be discovered in the future, this solution is covered.

const decodeHTMLEntities = text => {
    // Create a new element or use one from cache, to save some element creation overhead
    const el = decodeHTMLEntities.__cache_data_element 
             = decodeHTMLEntities.__cache_data_element 
               || document.createElement('div');
    
    const enc = text
        // Prevent any mixup of existing pattern in text
        .replace(/⪪/g, '⪪#')
        // Encode entities in special format. This will prevent native element encoder to replace any amp characters
        .replace(/&([a-z1-8]{2,31}|#x[0-9a-f]+|#\d+);/gi, '⪪$1⪫');

    // Encode any HTML tags in the text to prevent script injection
    el.textContent = enc;

    // Decode entities from special format, back to their original HTML entities format
    el.innerHTML = el.innerHTML
        .replace(/⪪([a-z1-8]{2,31}|#x[0-9a-f]+|#\d+)⪫/gi, '&$1;')
        .replace(/⪪#/g, '⪪');
   
    // Get the decoded HTML entities
    const dec = el.textContent;
    
    // Clear the element content, in order to preserve a bit of memory (in case the text is big)
    el.textContent = '';

    return dec;
}

// Example
console.log(decodeHTMLEntities("<script>alert('&awconint;&CounterClockwiseContourIntegral;&#x02233;&#8755;⪪#x02233⪫');</script>"));
// Prints: <script>alert('∳∳∳∳⪪#x02233⪫');</script>

By the way, I have chosen to use the characters ⪪ and ⪫, because they are rarely used, so the chance of impacting the performance by matching them is significantly lower.

Alternatively, theres also a library for it..

here, https://cdnjs.com/libraries/he

npm install he                 //using node.js

<script src="js/he.js"></script>  //or from your javascript directory

The usage is as follows...

//to encode text 
he.encode('© Ande & Nonso® Company LImited 2018');  

//to decode the 
he.decode('© Ande & Nonso® Company Limited 2018');

cheers.