How to compare innerHTML containing a hexadeximal character reference?

Question

I have a tag containing &#x25bc ; (which is displayed as ▼ on the rendered page) :

<span id=up_down>&#x25bc;</span>

The problem is that when I try and compare innerHTML against &#x25bc ;

it is instead trying to compare ▼ == &#x25bc ; (and failing)

var e = document.getElementById("up_down");
if ( e.innerHTML == '▲' )
{
  e.innerHTML = '▼';
}
else if ( e.innerHTML == '▼' )
{
  e.innerHTML = '▲';
}

Answer 1

Try to escape() it and use %u25BC and %u25B2 instead.

var e = document.getElementById("up_down");
if ( escape(e.innerHTML) == '%u25B2' )
{
  e.innerHTML = '▼';
}
else if ( escape(e.innerHTML) == '%u25BC' )
{
  e.innerHTML = '▲';
}​

demo