Nesting quotes in JavaScript/HTML

Ryan Elkins picture Ryan Elkins · Jun 14, 2010 · Viewed 33k times · Source

How do you nest quotes in HTML beyond the second level? As far as I know, there are only 2 types of quotes - single(') and double("). I am aware of escaping using slashes - you have to escape in the code but that escaping won't work at the browser level. What is the accepted method to get around something like the following?

<p onclick="exampleFunc('<div id="divId"></div>');">Some Text</p>

That code prints to the browser:

');">Some Text

Answer

Gumbo picture Gumbo · Jun 14, 2010

You need to use proper escaping/encoding. Either in HTML using character references:

<p onclick="exampleFunc('&lt;div id=&quot;divId&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;');">Some Text</p>

Or in JavaScript using string escape sequences:

<p onclick="exampleFunc('\x3Cdiv\x20id\x3D\x22divId\x22\x3E\x3C/div\x3E');">Some Text</p>