Question

I have a problem setting a cdata node with jquery. Getting cdata is easily done with the .text() function, but if I use .text(‘jquery > handy’) it doesn’t create a cdata node.

This is my procecure:
I get form data in xml to load in a form
something like this:

<formdata>
  <field id="title"><![CDATA[Some title]]></field>
  <field id="description"><![CDATA[Some description]]></field>
</formdata>

I use cdata nodes because a field can contain all kinds of special chars.
Then I load the data in the form by getting the node content with .text()

If the user posts the form, I update the xml and convert it to a sting to post it to the server. I know I could just post the fields, but I have some good reasons to put it in an xml document. Everything works very well, but not if the user does some input with special characters.
This is how i set the value of the node (in this example the “descriptioon node”)

domdoc.find('field[id="description"]').text($("#description").val());

So the node used to be cdata, but the .text() function removes that. I alo tried this:

domdoc.find('field[id="description"]').text('<![CDATA[' + $("#description").val() + ']]>');

This also doesn’t work because .text() changes < to &gt;

does anyone has a solution? My inspiration is gone…..

Thanks,
Simon

Answer 1

Just set text, without adding <![CDATA[. CDATA is just one of the ways to escape text in XML, but since jQuery escapes for you, you don’t need to use another method. < is just as good as <![CDATA[<]]>. For XML applications they’re identical.