Why Was Org. Apache. Common. Lang3 Stringescapeutils Deprecated?

I couldn't find any explanation why StringEscapeUtils was deprecated from Apache Lang3 v3.7.

What are we supposed to use now for HTML escaping/unescaping

1

4 Answers

The class was moved from package

org.apache.commons.lang3

to

org.apache.commons.text

You can replace the deprecated library easily:

In your build.gradle:

implementation 'org.apache.commons:commons-text:1.9'

And in your class using StringEscapeUtils make sure you import the correct class:

import org.apache.commons.text.StringEscapeUtils;

1.9 is currently the newest version (last checked February 24th 2021) but you can check the versions at maven:

1

Per the deprecation listing, it was moved to a new project -- commons-text

From Commons-lang 3.6 release notes:

The Apache Commons Community has recently set up the Commons Text component as a home for algorithms working on strings. For this reason most of the string focused functionality in Commons Lang has been deprecated and moved to Commons Text. This includes:

o All classes in the org.apache.commons.lang3.text and the org.apache.commons.lang3.text.translate packages o org.apache.commons.lang3.StringEscapeUtils o org.apache.commons.lang3.RandomStringUtils o The methods org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.getJaroWinklerDistance and org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.getLevenshteinDistance

For more information see the Commons Text website:


Do below steps

  • Add below dependency to your pom.xml (if using maven)
    <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-text</artifactId>
       <version>1.4</version>
    <dependency>

  • Import correct package as below
    import org.apache.commons.text.StringEscapeUtils;

  • There is no such method unescapeHtml() in this class anymore, instead its two variations are available unescapeHtml3() and unescapeHtml4()
  • Use unescapeHtml3() to unescape Html 3.0 characters
  • Use unescapeHtml4() to unescape Html 4.0 characters
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Sarah Jenkins

Sarah Jenkins

Senior Technology Editor & AI Specialist

Sarah Jenkins is a veteran tech journalist with over 12 years of experience covering artificial intelligence, mobile innovations, and digital ethics. Her insights have appeared in leading technology publications worldwide.

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