Python – Convert HTML Characters To Strings

Prerequisites: html module

Given a string with HTML characters, the task is to convert HTML characters to a string. This can be achieved with the help of html.escape() method(for Python 3.4+), we can convert the ASCII string into HTML script by replacing ASCII characters with special characters by using html.escape() method.

By this method we can decode the HTML entities into text.

Syntax:

html.unescape(String)

We can also use Beautiful Soup which handles entity conversion. In Beautiful Soup 4, entities get decoded automatically.

Example 1: Python 3.6+

Python3

# import html
import html

# Create Text
text = 'Γeeks for Γeeks'

# It Converts given text To String
print(html.unescape(text))

# It Converts given text to HTML Entities
print(html.escape(text))

Output:

Γeeks for Γeeks

Γeeks for Γeeks

Example 2: Python 2.6-3.3

We can use HTMLParser.unescape() from the standard library:

• For Python 2.6-2.7 it’s in HtmlParser.
• For Python 3 it’s in html.parser

Python3

#import html
import html

try:
    # Python 2.6-2.7
    from HTMLParser import HTMLParser
except ImportError:
    # Python 3
    from html.parser import HTMLParser

# for python 3
h = html.parser
print(h.unescape('Γeeks for Γeeks'))

Output:

Γeeks for Γeeks