function unhtmlentities($string)
{
    // replace numeric entities
    $string = preg_replace('~&#x([0-9a-f]+);~ei', 'chr(hexdec("\\1"))', $string);
    $string = preg_replace('~&#([0-9]+);~e', 'chr("\\1")', $string);
    // replace literal entities
    $trans_tbl = get_html_translation_table(HTML_ENTITIES);
    $trans_tbl = array_flip($trans_tbl);
    return strtr($string, $trans_tbl);
}