Use javascript to convert special character back to HTML entity code

Question

In one function of my site, the inner HTML of a div element is changed to include a right arrow. This symbol is included in the innerHTML of "myDiv" as ➞

In a separate function, I am trying to match the innerHTML of "myDiv" with ➞

function myFunction() {
//Many lines of code then
    var myText = document.getElementById("myDiv").innerHTML;
    alert(myText);
    if (myText.match(/&#10142;/g)) { //also tried with /&amp;&#35;10142;/g
         alert('Yep');
         myText = myText.replace(/&#10142;/g, " to yield ");
    }
//Many more lines
}

When I alert myText as in the function above (before the if statement), the alerted output contains an actual right arrow ➞, not ➞ The problem is that even though ➞ is present in the code to produce the innerHTML of "myDiv" in the first place (in a separate function), in myFunction() ➞ does not seem to match, since the alert('Yep') is not called.

I looked up and in desperation tried decodeURIComponent() but I was pretty sure this was not going to work and it seemed not to. Can anyone help with this problem? Thanks

Ry- · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-14 16:20:15Z

1

Check it against an actual right arrow, then.

function myFunction() {
//Many lines of code then
    var myText = document.getElementById("myDiv").innerHTML;
    alert(myText);
    if (myText.match(/➞/g)) { //also tried with /&amp;&#35;10142;/g
         alert('Yep');
         myText = myText.replace(/➞/g, " to yield ");
    }
//Many more lines
}

answered Jul 14, 2014 at 16:20

Ry-♦

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3 Comments

The One and Only ChemistryBlob Over a year ago

Nice...this worked perfectly. Thank you. So I suppose the lesson here is the innerHTML of any element which includes a non-keyboard character actually contains the non-keyboard character, not the HTML code for that character?

Ry- Over a year ago

@TheOneandOnlyChemistryBlob: It’s not a non-keyboard character; it’s any character. But yes, unless it’s necessary for escaping. (You should try to avoid innerHTML and work with actual text when you can; it doesn’t have that kind of inconsistency.)

The One and Only ChemistryBlob Over a year ago

This solution worked but I just tried matching the different right arrow represented by → (there are multiple different directional arrows) and this matched too. I guess an arrow is an arrow is an arrow as far as matching innerHTML is concerned :)

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