The Spring Framework

## org.springframework.web.util
Class HtmlUtils

    java.lang.Object
      org.springframework.web.util.HtmlUtils

    public abstract class HtmlUtils

extends Object

Utility class for HTML escaping. Escapes and unescapes based on the W3C HTML 4.01 recommendation, handling character entity references.

Reference: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/charset.html

For a comprehensive set of String escaping utilities, consider Jakarta Commons Lang and its StringEscapeUtils class. We are not using that class here to avoid a runtime dependency on Commons Lang just for HTML escaping. Furthermore, Spring's HTML escaping is more flexible and 100% HTML 4.0 compliant.

Since:
  01.03.2003
Author:
  Juergen Hoeller, Martin Kersten
See Also:
  `org.apache.commons.lang.StringEscapeUtils`

Constructor Summary
`HtmlUtils()`

Method Summary
`static String` `htmlEscape(String input)` Turn special characters into HTML character references.
`static String` `htmlEscapeDecimal(String input)` Turn special characters into HTML character references.
`static String` `htmlEscapeHex(String input)` Turn special characters into HTML character references.
`static String` `htmlUnescape(String input)` Turn HTML character references into their plain text UNICODE equivalent.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object
`clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait`

Constructor Detail

### HtmlUtils

    public HtmlUtils()

Method Detail

### htmlEscape

    public static String htmlEscape(String input)

  Turn special characters into HTML character references. Handles complete character set defined in HTML 4.01 recommendation.

  Escapes all special characters to their corresponding entity reference (e.g. `<`).

  Reference: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html

  Parameters:
    `input` - the (unescaped) input string
  Returns:
    the escaped string

### htmlEscapeDecimal

    public static String htmlEscapeDecimal(String input)

  Turn special characters into HTML character references. Handles complete character set defined in HTML 4.01 recommendation.

  Escapes all special characters to their corresponding numeric reference in decimal format (&#Decimal;).

  Reference: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html

  Parameters:
    `input` - the (unescaped) input string
  Returns:
    the escaped string

### htmlEscapeHex

    public static String htmlEscapeHex(String input)

  Turn special characters into HTML character references. Handles complete character set defined in HTML 4.01 recommendation.

  Escapes all special characters to their corresponding numeric reference in hex format (&#xHex;).

  Reference: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html

  Parameters:
    `input` - the (unescaped) input string
  Returns:
    the escaped string

### htmlUnescape

    public static String htmlUnescape(String input)

  Turn HTML character references into their plain text UNICODE equivalent.

  Handles complete character set defined in HTML 4.01 recommendation and all reference types (decimal, hex, and entity).

  Correctly converts the following formats:

  > &#Entity; - (Example: &amp;) case sensitive &#Decimal; - (Example: &#68;)
  > &#xHex; - (Example: &#xE5;) case insensitive

  Gracefully handles malformed character references by copying original characters as is when encountered.

  Reference: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html

  Parameters:
    `input` - the (escaped) input string
  Returns:
    the unescaped string

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