How do I unescape a string?

Question

using ajax get method to pass a variable. where i use to escape the string with escape() function.

In php, I receive the value and insert into a database.

How do I unescape the string?

For example, for:

balaji's

I get

balaji%27s.

Answer 1

You can use this function instead of urldecode()

function utf8_urldecode($str) {
        return html_entity_decode(preg_replace("/%u([0-9a-f]{3,4})/i", "&#x\\1;", urldecode($str)), null, 'UTF-8');
}

Answer 2

You can try this:

htmlspecialchars(urldecode($str));