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javascriptjqueryasp-classicescaping

Escaping quotes in Javascript variable from Classic ASP

How can I escape quotes using a Classic ASP variable in javascript/jQuery? The ASP variable is taken from a DB. I'm using:

var goala = "<%=(goal_a)%>";

But obviously that appears as

var goala = "<p>testing "quotation" marks</p>";

when the page loads, which breaks the function with unexpected identifier.

edit: I'm using using jQuery not "how can I achieve this using jQuery" sorry wasn't clear.

Any ideas? Thanks

Solution

  • You've asked how to do this "Using jQuery." You can't. By the time jQuery would be involved, the code would already be invalid. You have to fix this server-side.

    Classic ASP is unlikely to have anything built-in that will help you solve this in the general case.

    Note that you have to handle more than just " characters. To successfully output text to a JavaScript string literal, you'll have to handle at least the quotes you use (" or '), line breaks, any other control characters, etc.

    If you're using VBScript as your server-side language, you can use Replace to replace the characters you need to replace:

    var goala = "<%=Replace(goal_a, """", "\""")%>";

    Again, though, you'll need to build a list of the things you need to handle and work through it; e.g.

    var goala = "<%=Replace(Replace(Replace(goal_a, """", "\"""), Chr(13), "\n"), Chr(10), "\r")%>";

    ...and so on.

    If your server-side language is JScript, you can use replace in much the same way:

    var goala = "<%=goal_a.replace(/"/g, "\\\").replace(/\r/g, "\\r").replace(/\n/g, "\n")%>";

    ...and so on. Note the use of regular expressions with the g flag so that you replace all occurrences (if you use a string for the first argument, it just replaces the first match).