String delimiters

A really basic question

[amsmota]

This seems so basic that i'm ashamed of ask, but...

In JavaScript/JSP, i have code like this:

arrWorkList[<%= i %>] = {
atributoA:"<%= i + 1 %>",
atributoB:"<%= (line[1]%>" }

Since i have no control on what the JSP will put on line[1], it can have (and *does* have) words like

"Café d'Ouro"

so i get a error either i have

atributoB:"<%= (line[1]%>"
atributoB:'<%= (line[1]%>'

so what alternative have i?

Thanks a lot.

[garann]

I'm guessing you don't have control over the backend code and what line[1] initially gets populated with? If so, you can try

<%= (line[1]).replace("'","''") %>

I'm not totally sure on the syntax or whether those are the right quotes, but hopefully you get the idea.

replace method [java.sun.com]

[amsmota]

Thanks for the help. The replace method only accepts a char in both params, not a String, so that won't do. But since yes, i have control over the jsp, i ended up using something similar along that line, the jakarta commons StringEscapeUtils. It has escapeHtml, escapeJava and escapeJavaString that covers all my needs.

However i wonder what can i do if i wanted a client-side Javascript only solution, as that is one situation that may occur.

Thanks again.

[garann]

In my experience, you really need to escape those variables at the server. Once you write them to the page, they'll complain immediately if the quotes don't match up.

If you pass a variable to Javascript, you can do escaping very easily, so hopefully that's the situation in which you'll need it? But your Java code obviously can't pass Javascript a variable, so escaping these at the server is really the way to go.

[amsmota]

Well, i was thinking in going to the server via XmlHttpRequest (yes, i'm a ajax guy ;) )and manipulate the resulting string via Javascript, so how can i "do escaping very easily"?

I mean all the escape, the HTML escape chracters and this case of " and '.

Am i forgetting something?

[garann]

I'm afraid I don't know anything about the AJAX end of it, but the Javascript replace method is much the same as Java's. You'll want to supply it a regular expression and a replacement string. Good luck!

[amsmota]

Well, ajax is just that, javascript and xmlhttrequest. and the dom... and css... and xml... and xslt... and whatever!

When you said "escaping very easily" i thougth there was something like the jarkata commons StringEscapeUtilities, that realy does it simply...

So you say i must use replace to replace ' with '', " with \", & with &amp; and the rest? That's not "very easily", i mean, it's easy but a lot of typing...

Oh well, so be it...

Thanks a lot.