HOw to convert HTML to plain text in a UI Action

[gjz1]

I have a requirement to update the contents of a field from one table to the field of another table if a specific action occurs.  The sending table's field is HTML, the receiving table's field is string.

I need to convert the HTML field to plain text so it renders correctly in the receiving table.  I've searched the community and find a lot of information (that works) to convert the tags but nothing to convert the special characters.

My UI Action:

var rhtml = current.html_field.getDisplayValue();
var txtDesc = rhtml.replace(/<\/?[^>]+(>|$)/g, "");

var gr = new GlideRecord("my_table");
gr.get(current.my_table);
gr.setValue("string_field", txtDesc);
my_table.update();

I entered "So, don't use XXX because it makes things worse!" in the HTML field, after running the above UI Action the data in the text field is "So, don&#39;t use XXX because it makes things worse!"

Any ideas how to remove the HTML special character formatting in a UI Action?

[SanjivMeher]

Check the below link if it helps

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=1c92c721dbd8dbc01dcaf3231f96...

[gjz1]

I did see that post already but it doesn't cover what I need.  I'm trying to remove the HTML symbols.  For example, I need to remove &#39; from the word don$#39;t so it displays as don't.

[gjz1]

I have found a solution for myself, I created the following function that seems to convert everything to text - at least it meets my needs.  It would be nice if ServiceNow would add a built-in function to convert from HTML to text.

function decodeHTML(str) {
    var a = str.replace(/<\/?[^>]+(>|$)/g, ""); //Remove tags
    var b = a.replace(/&amp;/g, '&'); //Retain any ampersands that are just ampersands
    return b.replace(/&#(\d+);/g, function(match, dec) {
        return String.fromCharCode(dec); //Returns the special character from the decimal code representation and returns the entire decoded string.
    });
}

[David Lundy]

I was looking for this exact sort of thing and it works perfectly!  Thanks so much for posting this.