Javascript/jQuery encoding for special characters when using val()

Question

I have a problem with special characters like &, ä, etc. and their corresponding HTML encoded writing like &, ä etc.

• When they are used in the value tag of input fields, the browser decodes it automatically, no problem at all.

• When using jQuerys val() function, the browser has no chance to evaluate the content correctly

  $("button").click(function(){     $("#test").val("&"); }); 

Any idea?

Answer 1

You can use this age-old entity decoding trick:

$("button").click(function(){     $("#test").val($("<div>").html("&amp;").text()); }); 

Working demo: http://jsfiddle.net/AndyE/XegGy/

It creates a temporary <div> element, sets its HTML to & and then gets the text value, which will be &.

Answer 2

Try .html() function:

$("#test").html("&");