C#/.NET - Method for converting character codes to equivalent chars

Question

After extracting a piece of text in my application, I might end up with a string like this:

"More kitchen supplies for the people"

Which in plain text would be:

"More kitchen supplies for the people"

Is there a component/method in .NET I can use to "process" the string into its plain text equivalent?

I'm able to assume regular ascii text in general, no odd unicode or strange alphabets. It just seems that normal signs like ', ", | etc. are provided as character codes.

EDIT: I think I should note that this is about .NET for Windows desktop development. Appearantly there are methods to do this for ASP.NET only, and I didn't realize that simple operations like this could be limited to specific .NET platforms.

Answer 1

The System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlDecode method can handle this:

(powershell v2 example)

ps> add-type -an system.web
ps> [system.web.httputility]::HtmlDecode(""")
"
ps>

Hope this helps,

-Oisin

Answer 2

If you know the codes are ASCII you can use the following to convert each little &x22 number.

public char Convert(string data) {
  data = data.SubString(1);  // Lose the &
  var num = Int32.Parse(data, NumberStyles.Hex | NumberStyles.AllowHexSpecifier);
  var chars = Encoding.ASCII.GetChars(new byte[] { (byte)num });
  return chars[0];
}

Answer 3

I get an error

Error 1 The type name 'HtmlDecode' does not exist in the type 'System.Web.HttpUtility'