[iOS] Named entity   rendered literally, then saved as   #818

Before submitting a new issue

• I tested using the latest version of the library, as the bug might be already fixed. (1.1.1, the latest release; the code below is unchanged on main @ 0d015a7)
• I tested using a supported version of react native.
• I checked for possible duplicate issues, with possible answers. (Related but different: HTML Entity Support #235 / feat: iOS Html entities handling #258 fixed & < >, and iOS setValue renders numeric HTML entities emitted by Android getHTML as literal text #636 / fix(iOS): rendering numeric entities #638 fixed numeric references.)

Bug summary

On iOS, EnrichedTextInput (and EnrichedText) render the named character reference   as the literal six characters  . The next getHTML() / onChangeHtml then escapes the &, so the stored HTML becomes  . After that, the literal text shows up on every platform, because it is now real text.

  is very common input. The HTML serialization algorithm (WHATWG "escaping a string") writes U+00A0 as  . So HTML produced on the web (innerHTML, this library's web editor, Tiptap/ProseMirror getHTML()) contains it whenever the text has a non-breaking space. Browsers insert one for a trailing or double space typed in a contenteditable. This library's Android serializer (EnrichedParser.withinStyle) also writes runs of spaces as  . So content written on web or Android and then edited on iOS gets corrupted.

Cause: getEscapedCharactersInfoFrom in ios/extensions/StringExtension.mm only maps &, < and >, plus numeric references. Android (TagSoup) and web (DOMParser) decode named references.

Suggested fix: add at least   → U+00A0, " → " and ' → ' to unescapeMap. Ideally, decode the full HTML5 named-reference table.

Workaround we use for now: before passing HTML to the component, rewrite   / " / ' to   / " / ', which iOS already decodes.

Library version

1.1.1

Environment info

react-native 0.86.2
expo 57.0.14 (dev client, new architecture)
react 19.2.3
iOS Simulator 18.6 (iPhone 16 Pro); also seen on a physical iPhone running iOS 26

Steps to reproduce

1. On iOS, render an EnrichedTextInput with:

   <EnrichedTextInput defaultValue={'<html><p>Hello&nbsp;world</p></html>'} onChangeHtml={(e) => console.log(e.nativeEvent.value)} />

2. Observed: the input shows Hello world. Expected: Hello world, with a non-breaking space.
3. Type one character. Observed in onChangeHtml: …Hello world…. Expected: U+00A0 (or  ), not  .
4. The same HTML on Android and web renders correctly.

Reproducible example repository

No standalone repo yet. The steps above use the stock component only, with no app code involved.