XML unescape tool
Useful for reading XML or HTML that arrived escaped inside an API message or a log.
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Processing and privacy: The result is calculated inside your browser and your data is not sent to any server.
How to use it
- Enter escaped text.
- The result appears straight away and updates as you edit.
- Copy the result, or copy a link that keeps the same values to share it.
How it is calculated
In one pass the five standard entities < > & " ' and numeric references &#N; (decimal) and &#xH; (hex) are replaced by their characters. One pass means &lt; becomes <, not <. Unknown entities and references to disallowed characters are left as they are.
Example
Result: Unescaped text: <name>سارة & أحمد</name>; Entities decoded: 13; Entities left unchanged: 0.
<name>سارة & أحمد</name>
<name>سارة & أحمد</name>
Limits and caveats
- HTML entities such as and © are not part of XML, so they stay as they are.
- Only one level is decoded, text escaped twice needs a second run.
Questions about this tool
Why did stay unchanged?
XML defines only five named entities and belongs to HTML. Use the numeric reference   instead.
What does س mean?
It is a decimal reference to Unicode code point 1587, the Arabic letter seen. س is the same number in hexadecimal.
Why did &lt; not become <?
Decoding runs once, as an XML parser does, so &lt; becomes <. Run the tool again if the text was escaped twice.