StringUtils has some Url Encode and Decode functions.
Just pass it the one with the funny html chars to the decoder and it becomes plain text.
Then to pass it in say an http request, encode it.
In vb.net or C# there is a way to do the same. I would avoid parsing those special chars yourself. You're going to miss some and get a crash by not using built in functionality cause there's a ton: http://www.dotnetperls.com/encode-html-string
The XML library takes care of decoding the string during parsing.
When you build a request you will need to encode the string.
If your text is not expected to include "]]>" then you can use CDATA instead of escaping the string:
StringUtils does that encoding like i said, encodes and decodes.
That's precisely what I use for making http requests where I have to send text and make sure that it's accepted properly
html encoded values have things like %3D etc... in place of regular characters.
It just looks for these special chars, and replaces them with garbled looking text, usually with a % sign in front.
are you just encoding the values or ALL of the entire request?