Python - Display string containing entity references as normal text

Question

I have a Python string "''Grassmere''" as retrieved from a website.

I would like to have the ' displayed as the correct ascii symbol (') but for some reason python insists on just printing the ascii code.

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1208916/decoding-html-entities-with-python. — kennytm, Jan 31 '10 at 09:07
@KennyTM: Not quite the same issue; BS handles the entity references itself. — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Jan 31 '10 at 09:09

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 31 '10 at 09:40

3

Batteries are included for this one

>>> import xmllib
>>> X=xmllib.XMLParser()
>>> X.translate_references("&#039;&#039;Grassmere&#039;&#039;")
"''Grassmere''"

answered Jan 31 '10 at 09:40

John La Rooy

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 31 '10 at 09:46

1

Or without additional modules:

re.sub("&#(\d+);", lambda m: chr(int(m.group(1))), "&#039;&#039;Grassmere&#039;&#039;")

answered Jan 31 '10 at 09:46

Eugene Morozov

2 Answers2