Why does Html decode not working for &ast; &dollar;

Question

I have a console application to load XmlDocument , but it fail to load if the string has values like * $

Any idea how to load the xml? all responses are appreciated

using System;
using System.Net;   
using System.Xml;

public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        //string xmlStringWorking = "© ¨ À ¥ §";

        string xmlStringWorking = "* $ © ¨ À ¥ §";

        xmlStringWorking= WebUtility.HtmlDecode(xmlStringWorking);

        XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
                        doc.LoadXml(xmlStringWorking);

        Console.WriteLine(xmlStringWorking);
    }
}

expecting special characters are here

dotnetfiddle

user_15498 · Answer

HtmlDecode is just intended to undo the effects of HtmlEncode. Since * and $ have no special meaning in HTML, they don't need to be encoded; therefore HtmlEncode would not encode them as * and $; therefore HtmlDecode will not decode them.

user_2323280 · Answer

You have to declared these entities with their values:

string xmlStringWorking = " ]> * $ © ¨ À ¥ §";

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/data/xml/reading-entity-declarations-and-entity-references-into-the-dom

user_8706234 · Answer

You can replace: * by *; $ by $;

string xmlStringWorking = "* $ © ¨ À ¥ §";

user_2753555 · Answer

DotNet 4.7 method WebUtility.HtmlDecode don't support decodeing html5 entity set.

With the help of "AngleSharp" library we are able to parse html5 entities correctly

using System;
using System.Net;   
using System.Xml;
using AngleSharp.Parser.Html;
public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        string xmlStringWorking = "* $ © ¨ À ¥ §";

        var parser = new HtmlParser();

        var document = parser.Parse(xmlStringWorking);

        XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

        doc.LoadXml(document.DocumentElement.GetElementsByTagName(@"body").First().InnerHtml.Replace(" "," "));

        Console.WriteLine(document.DocumentElement.GetElementsByTagName(@"body").First().InnerHtml.Replace(" "," "));
    }
}

But it failed on character

Temporary fix .Replace(" "," ") is working.

Why does Html decode not working for &ast; &dollar;

4 Answers