title: Explain what &quot means
body: <p>I can't find a clear explanation of what it means when a value/variable is surrounded by '&amp;quot' and why it happens. </p>
  
  <p>For example, I have a simple function which returns an array containing an id.</p>
  
  <pre><code>return [params[:id]]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>For some reason, it returns:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[&amp;quot;4&amp;quot;]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>not:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[4]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which I would have expected.</p>
  
  <p>Can someone explain what '&amp;quot' is and why/how they are inserted?</p>