NAME

XML::Entities - Decode strings with XML entities

SYNOPSIS

 use XML::Entities;
 $a = "Tom &amp; Jerry &copy; Warner Bros&period;";
 $b = XML::Entities::decode('all', $a);
 $c = XML::Entities::numify('all', $a);
 # now $b is "Tom & Jerry © Warner Bros.
 # and $c is "Tom &#38; Jerry &#169; Warner Bros&#46;"
 # void context modifies the arguments
 XML::Entities::numify('all', $a);
 XML::Entities::decode('all', $a, $c);
 # Now $a, $b and $c all contain the decoded string

DESCRIPTION

Based upon the HTML::Entities module by Gisle Aas

This module deals with decoding of strings with XML character entities. The module provides two functions:

decode( $entity_set, $string, ... )

This routine replaces XML entities from $entity_set found in the $string with the corresponding Unicode character. Unrecognized entities are left alone.

The $entity_set can either be a name of an entity set - the selection of which can be obtained by XML::Entities::Data::names(), or "all" for a union, or alternatively a hashref which maps entity names (without leading &'s) to the corresponding Unicode characters (or strings).

If multiple strings are provided as argument they are each decoded separately and the same number of strings are returned.

If called in void context the arguments are decoded in-place.

Note: If your version of "HTML::Parser" was built without Unicode support, then "XML::Entities" uses a regular expression to do the decoding, which is slower.

numify( $entity_set, $string, ... )

This functions converts named XML entities to numeric XML entities. It is less robust than the "decode" function in the sense that it doesn't capture improperly terminated entities. It behaves like "decode" in treating parameters and returning values.

XML::Entities::Data

The list of entities is defined in the XML::Entities::Data module. The list can be generated from the w3.org definition (or any other). Check "perldoc XML::Entities::Data" for more details.

Encoding entities

The HTML::Entities module provides a function for encoding entities. You just have to assign the right mapping to the %HTML::Entities::char2entity hash. So, to encode everything that XML::Entities knows about, you'd say:

 use XML::Entities;
 use HTML::Entities;
 %HTML::Entities::char2entity = %{
    XML::Entities::Data::char2entity('all');
 };
 my $encoded = encode_entities('tom&jerry');
 # now $encoded is 'tom&amp;jerry'

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