Read a title's HTML entities as the characters they stand for

An Atom title of type="html", and an RSS title in CDATA, reach the parser
with their entities intact, so The Verge's "Meta’s" showed as typed:
55 stored titles across 17 feeds. Titles are decoded one entity at a time
with quick-xml's HTML5 table, leaving an & that starts none ("Q&A") alone
rather than failing the whole title.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -23,6 +23,12 @@ The long form, with what was wrong before and how it was found, is in
 - The first scan after upgrading fetches every feed in full once, on its usual schedule, so each
   picks up its category without waiting for the publisher to change something.
 
+### Fixed
+
+- Titles that arrive as HTML, such as The Verge's, no longer show their entities as text:
+  "Meta’s" reads "Meta’s". Titles already stored are corrected the next time their feed
+  changes.
+
 ## [0.5.5] - 2026-09-14
 
 ### Changed

Cargo.toml

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ futures-util = { version = "0.3.34", default-features = false, features = ["std"
 librqbit = { version = "9.0.1", default-features = false, features = ["rust-tls", "http-api-client"] }
 opml = "1.1.6"
 percent-encoding = "2.3.2"
-quick-xml = "0.42.0"
+quick-xml = { version = "0.42.0", features = ["escape-html"] }
 reqwest = { version = "0.13.5", default-features = false, features = ["rustls", "http2", "gzip", "stream", "json", "charset", "system-proxy"] }
 rss = "2.1.1"
 rusqlite = { version = "0.40.2", features = ["bundled"] }

src/feed.rs

@@ -507,7 +507,7 @@ fn from_rss(ch: rss::Channel, bytes: &[u8]) -> ParsedFeed {
 
             Some(Entry {
                 guid,
-                title: non_empty(item.title()),
+                title: title_text(item.title()),
                 link: non_empty(item.link()),
                 published: item.pub_date().and_then(parse_date),
                 // Content wins over description, as __getEntries preferred entry.content.
@@ -529,7 +529,7 @@ fn from_rss(ch: rss::Channel, bytes: &[u8]) -> ParsedFeed {
         .collect();
 
     ParsedFeed {
-        title: non_empty(Some(ch.title())),
+        title: title_text(Some(ch.title())),
         ttl_mins: ch.ttl().and_then(|t| t.trim().parse().ok()),
         // itunes:image is the square artwork; <image><url> is the older, often smaller one.
         image: ch
@@ -582,7 +582,7 @@ fn from_atom(feed: atom_syndication::Feed) -> ParsedFeed {
 
             Some(Entry {
                 guid,
-                title: non_empty(Some(e.title().as_str())),
+                title: title_text(Some(e.title().as_str())),
                 link: alt.map(str::to_owned),
                 published: e.published().or(Some(e.updated())).map(|d| d.timestamp()),
                 description: body(e.content().and_then(|c| c.value()), e.summary().map(|s| s.as_str())),
@@ -598,7 +598,7 @@ fn from_atom(feed: atom_syndication::Feed) -> ParsedFeed {
         .collect();
 
     ParsedFeed {
-        title: non_empty(Some(feed.title().as_str())),
+        title: title_text(Some(feed.title().as_str())),
         ttl_mins: None,
         image: feed.logo().or_else(|| feed.icon()).map(str::to_owned),
         category: None,
@@ -631,6 +631,39 @@ fn non_empty(s: Option<&str>) -> Option<String> {
     s.map(str::trim).filter(|s| !s.is_empty()).map(str::to_owned)
 }
 
+/// A title as plain text. An Atom title of `type="html"`, or an RSS one in CDATA, comes through
+/// the XML parser with its HTML entities intact: The Verge's "Meta&#8217;s" reached the page as
+/// typed. Decoded one entity at a time, so an `&` that starts none, as in "Q&A", stays as it is
+/// instead of failing the whole title.
+fn title_text(s: Option<&str>) -> Option<String> {
+    let s = non_empty(s)?;
+    let mut out = String::with_capacity(s.len());
+    let mut rest = s.as_str();
+    while let Some(at) = rest.find('&') {
+        out.push_str(&rest[..at]);
+        rest = &rest[at..];
+        let len = 1 + rest[1..]
+            .find(|c: char| !(c.is_ascii_alphanumeric() || c == '#'))
+            .unwrap_or(rest.len() - 1);
+        let decoded = rest[len..]
+            .starts_with(';')
+            .then(|| quick_xml::escape::unescape_with(&rest[..=len], quick_xml::escape::resolve_html5_entity).ok())
+            .flatten();
+        match decoded {
+            Some(v) => {
+                out.push_str(&v);
+                rest = &rest[len + 1..];
+            }
+            None => {
+                out.push('&');
+                rest = &rest[1..];
+            }
+        }
+    }
+    out.push_str(rest);
+    non_empty(Some(&out))
+}
+
 /// An item's show notes: its full body when that is whole, else its description.
 ///
 /// libsyn served Daily Meditation Podcast's `content:encoded` cut at the `>` inside a class name
@@ -744,6 +777,22 @@ mod tests {
         );
     }
 
+    #[test]
+    fn titles_are_read_as_text_not_html() {
+        // The Verge: an Atom title of type="html", its entity inside CDATA.
+        let xml = br#"<?xml version="1.0"?>
+        <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><title type="text">V</title><id>v</id>
+        <updated>2026-09-15T00:00:00Z</updated>
+        <entry><title type="html"><![CDATA[Meta&#8217;s new One]]></title><id>e1</id>
+        <updated>2026-09-15T00:00:00Z</updated></entry></feed>"#;
+        assert_eq!(parse(xml).unwrap().entries[0].title.as_deref(), Some("Meta\u{2019}s new One"));
+        // HTML names as well as numbers; a bare `&` and an unknown name are left as they are.
+        assert_eq!(
+            title_text(Some("Pe&ntilde;a &amp; &#x201C;Q&A&#8221; &bogus; AT&T;")).as_deref(),
+            Some("Pe\u{f1}a & \u{201c}Q&A\u{201d} &bogus; AT&T;")
+        );
+    }
+
     #[test]
     fn a_body_cut_off_mid_tag_gives_way_to_the_description() {
         // How libsyn served Daily Meditation Podcast #3477: content:encoded began inside a tag.