How to encode a string in JavaScript for displaying in HTML

Question

Possible Duplicate    How to escape HTML       How can a string be converted to HTML in JavaScript   e g   var unsafestring     lt oohlook amp atme gt    var safestring   magic unsafestring     where safestring now equals   amp lt ohhlook amp amp atme amp gt    I am looking for magic       I am not using JQuery for magic

User · Answer

If you want to use a library rather than doing it yourself:

The most commonly used way is using jQuery for this purpose:

var safestring = $('<div>').text(unsafestring).html();

If you want to to encode all the HTML entities you will have to use a library or write it yourself.

You can use a more compact library than jQuery, like HTML Encoder and Decode

User · Answer

function htmlEntities str        return String str  replace   amp  g    amp amp    replace   lt  g    amp lt    replace   gt  g    amp gt    replace    g    amp quot         So then with var unsafestring     lt oohlook amp atme gt    you would use htmlEntities unsafestring

User · Answer

You need to escape  lt  and  amp   Escaping  gt  too doesn t hurt   function magic input        input   input replace   amp  g    amp amp         input   input replace   lt  g    amp lt         input   input replace   gt  g    amp gt         return input      Or you let the DOM engine do the dirty work for you  using jQuery because I m lazy    function magic input        return     lt span gt    text input  html        What this does is creating a dummy element  assigning your string as its textContent  i e  no HTML-specific characters have side effects since it s just text  and then you retrieve the HTML content of that element - which is the text but with special characters converted to HTML entities in cases where it s necessary

User · Answer

The only character that needs escaping is  lt     gt  is meaningless outside of a tag    Therefore  your  magic  code is   safestring   unsafestring replace   lt  g   amp lt

User · Answer

Do not bother with encoding  Use a text node instead  Data in text node is guaranteed to be treated as text   document body appendChild document createTextNode  Your amp funky lt text gt here

[javascript] How to encode a string in JavaScript for displaying in HTML?

If you want to use a library rather than doing it yourself:

Examples related to javascript

Examples related to html