php, how to convert special characters to text?

Question

xxxi have the_title() that returns some text, in this case Blue & Whiny

the problem as we can see is that the & character looks different

how do i turn Blue & Whiny into Blue & Whiny i tryed: htmlspecialchars_decode(the_title()), html_entity_decode(the_title()),htmlspecialchars(the_title()) and nothing.

i want to convert & to &

there is not much code to share, I just do this: <?php the_title() ?> and i get Blue & Whiny. If i use get_the_title() it wont display anything

Any ideas? Thanks

edit1. ill share some code:

<script type="text/javascript">
function showShareUI() {

var act = new gigya.services.socialize.UserAction();
act.setUserMessage("Check out this article.");
act.setTitle("Trends on Explore Talent - <?php  the_title(); ?>");
act.setDescription("<?php  get_the_content();  ?>");
act.setLinkBack("<?php  the_permalink();  ?>");
act.addActionLink("Check out this article", "<?php the_permalink(); ?>");

var image = {
src: 'http://xxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/BOTTOM_BANNER.jpg',
href: '<?php the_permalink();?>',
type: 'image'
}
act.addMediaItem(image);

var params = 
{
userAction: act,  // The UserAction object enfolding the newsfeed data.                                           
onError: onError,  // onError method will be summoned if an error occurs. 
onSendDone: onSendDone // onError method will be summoned after 
,showEmailButton: true
    // Gigya finishes the publishing process.
};

gigya.services.socialize.showShareUI(conf, params);
}

function onError(event) {
alert('An error has occured' + ': ' + event.errorCode + '; ' + event.errorMessage);
}

function onSendDone(event)
{
document.getElementById('status').style.color = "green";
document.getElementById('status').innerHTML = 'The newsfeed has been posted to: ' +     event.providers;
}
</script>

I've tried everything. This starts to annoy me...

Answer 1

html_entity_decode() is the correct way to do it.

html_entity_decode("Blue & Whiny");

Will produce:

Blue & Whiny

If it's not working, make sure you don't have another issue - such as passing a string to it that is double encoded, or running htmlentities() on the string again later.

Demo: http://codepad.org/BHXGWXJi

Double check with a literal string and var_dump() the output, you should see the decoded version. Then var_dump(the_title()), to make sure you are actually passing what you think you are to html_entity_decode().