Question

In my case, I am trying to split the JavaScript Object dynamically into the HTML markup from C#.NET code behind. After getting the data, I prepare the string and create the object in the string and then spit it to the HTML markup.

var fileUploadDic = { 'firstname': 'Jo''hn', 'lastname' : 'Macy' , 'country' : 'USA };

Later on in some other action, such as button click, I tried to pull the firstname, and it gives me a JavaScript error because the value in the firstname property is not escaped to handle the single quote. Although I can do it while preparing the object string in the code backend, I like to do something at the client side instead.

var dv = $('#dv1')
dv.append(fileUploadDic.firstname);  //gives me error.
dv.append(fileUploadDic.lastname);
dv.append(fileUploadDic.country);

Is there any way in the JavaScript, that I can do the character escaping while fetching it from the object.

http://jsfiddle.net/uagFu/8/

Answer 1

The first line of code you show is not valid JavaScript:

var fileUploadDic = { 'firstname': 'Jo''hn', 'lastname' : 'Macy' , 'country' : 'USA };

Because the string 'Jo''hn' can’t have single quotes in it like that. It needs to be either 'Jo\'hn' or "Jo'hn". That is to say that if your JS string is quoted with single quotes you have to escape each single quote character within the string with a backslash, but if your JS string is quoted with double quotes you can use singles freely within the string. If you want two single quotes in a row 'Jo\'\'hn' or "Jo''hn".

There is nothing you can do to fix this client-side, because being invalid JavaScript it won’t run.

You have to fix it server-side; the easiest way is probably to escape it with a backslash, noting that if that is in a C# string you’ll need to escape the backslash too so that the actual output to the browser contains a backslash:

"var fileUploadDic = { 'firstname': 'Jo\\'hn', 'lastname' : 'Macy' , 'country' : 'USA };"