Question

I’m reading the value of an input text field and passing it to be used as ajax data

The field value has a +

<input name="someval" type="text" value="Receive (+ open)" />

and looks like when parsed with data, it parses the + as a jquery concatenation.

data: 'someval=' + $("input[name=someval]").val(),

This is the first time I notice this behavior.

• First, how do I solve it.
• Second, I have no way of knowing when the output might have these special chars, so is there a known best practice way to escape input so that whenever it happens we’re covered?

Thanks

Answer 1

Try encodeURIComponent:

'someval=' + encodeURIComponent($("input[name=someval]").val())

Better yet, let jQuery handle it for you:

data: { someval:$("input[name=someval]").val() }

jQuery will automatically escape your values (and keys) into the correct format (using jQuery.param()) for the data type (eg "application/x-www-form-urlencoded").