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Converting href perl variables to normal scalar variables

I have these two variables that I am trying to compare. They both have the same value, however, one is a href variable - meaning, it's being read from a file like this
<a href=http://google.com>Variable</a>
It's read like this, but displayed as an anchor tag in the browser, so when I go to compare a value using print "$collect_zids{$key} --> $temp";I see in the browser as
Variable --> Variable
How it appears in the browser. One text another link.
I'm assuming these two values are different hence why this code does not run
if($collect_zids{$key} eq $from_picture){
print "<h1>Hello</h1>";
}
Is there a way I can convert the href variable into a normal scalar variable so that I can compare them?
Thanks!
P.S. I think Javascript might be the only way, however, I don't have any experience with it.

There is no such thing as an "href variable". You have two scalar variables. One contains plain text and the other contains HTML. Your task is to extract the text inside the HTML <a> tag from the HTML variable and to compare that text with the text from the plain text variable.
One way to do that would be to remove the HTML from the HTML variable.
my $html = '<a href=http://google.com>Variable</a>';
my $text = 'Variable';
$html =~ s/<.+?>//g;
if ($html eq $text) {
say "Equal";
} else {
say "Not Equal [$html/$text]";
}
But it cannot be emphasised enough that parsing HTML using a regular expression is very fragile and is guaranteed not to work in many cases. Far better to use a real HTML parser. HTML::Strip is made for this very purpose.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say';
use HTML::Strip;
my $html = '<a href=http://google.com>Variable</a>';
my $text = 'Variable';
my $parser = HTML::Strip->new;
$html = $parser->parse($html);
if ($html eq $text) {
say "Equal";
} else {
say "Not Equal [$html/$text]";
}
It's also worth pointing out that this is answered in the Perl FAQ
How do I remove HTML from a string?
Use HTML::Strip, or HTML::FormatText which not only removes HTML but
also attempts to do a little simple formatting of the resulting plain
text.
Update: In a comment, you say
I have no way of using these methods since I am not explicitly defining the variable.
Which is clearly not true. How a variable is initialised has no bearing whatsoever on how you can use it.
I assume your HTML text is in the variable $from_picture, so you would strip the HTML with code like this:
my $parser = HTML::Strip->new;
my $stripped = $parser->parse($from_picture);
if($collect_zids{$key} eq $stripped){
print "<h1>Hello</h1>";
}
I have no idea where you got the idea that you couldn't use my solution because I was directly initialising the variables, where you were reading the data from a file. An important skill in programming is the ability to see through complex situations and extract the relevant details. It appears you need to do some more work in this area :-)

I found the answer using the Perl module HTML::FormatText;
use HTML::FormatText;
my $formatter = HTML::FormatText->new();
my $string = HTML::FormatText->format_file("path_to_the_file"); #$string variable to hold the result and the path must be for a file.
After using the HTML::FormatText module, I was able to get the raw string that was being read, instead of it being interpreted as HTML. So, I was getting <a href=http://google.com>Variable</a> returned, instead of just Variable. After getting the raw string, I could use regex to extract the parts that I needed.
Credit to - https://metacpan.org/pod/HTML::FormatText

converting a string to float doesn't work

I got a variable Javascrpit which has a number as a string in this case 0.84. I'm trying to convert it into a float but when I try to it appears a 0 as float instead the 0.84.
I'm using this:
var pot="0.84";
var asd = parseFloat(pot);
console.log(asd);
EDIT:
This is not exactly the example. I recover data from the HTML and it works for other numbers but not for this. It is difficult to explain my problem exactly. It is a lot of code and works for other numbers so don't know exactly.

Your input is not "0.84". If you test with that, you will get the correct answer. Your input has something else inside, like spaces, for example:
"0 .84"
This should be the solution:
parseFloat(pod.replace(/ /g, ""))

I have tried this example on my end and it completely worked. However, you can try to instead input the string value directly into the parse float() function and it should print our your expected value. If you still want to assign the parsefloat() to a variable, then try to either rewrite the code or re-open your IDE because the code should work.
var pot = "0.84"
console.log(parseFloat(pot))
or you can just write it in one line
console.log(parseFloat("0.84"))

convert string to json and than read the json value

First of all, I'm fairly new to json, so please forgive me if I've made a terrible mistake. I've got some code that gets a json object from a website using YQL It returns it as a string. So now I want to parse this into a json object and than read it.
This is my code:
$.getJSON("http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=select%20*%20from%20html%20where%20url=%22http://iphone-api.uitzendinggemist.nl/v1/episodes.json%22%20and%20xpath=%27*%27&format=json", function(data) {
console.log(data);
content = data.query.results.html.body.p;
json = JSON.stringify(eval("(" + content + ")"));
str = json.revoked;
$('#table').append('<li>' + str + '</li>');
});
JS fiddle
I just can't figure out why this gives me undifined, instead of the value it should give.
So now my question was if someone here knows why it isn't working properly.

The json variable is an array, you need to access an index.
string = json[0].revoked;

You have many many many errors in your code. You should try to understand each step that you are doing, it looks like you don't. Here's a fork of your code that does something, I'm not sure what you want it to do. I'll tell you few things you did wrong:
Use var keyword when declaring new variables within functions
Don't parse JSON using eval(), but use some parser. E.g. $.parseJSON(). Using eval() is a security risk, as returned script WILL be executed on client and you should only be interested in getting data.
When constructing HTML, take care to encode text that you want displayed. In your case, don't concatenate strings ('<li>' + str + '</li>'). You can use jQuery ($('<li>').text(str)).
Don't add li elements to a table element. Either add them to ul or ol elements, or in case of tables create rows and cells.
It is completely unclear why you would eval, and them stringify an object. You end up with same exact data.

Fix JS object replacing/encoding of strings?

I have an object with a value that has spaces in it, and it gets replaced with an encoded string, like:
alldata["test"] will return "Long+name"
or something like
alldata["test"] will return "%BLong+name%B"
when it's set by using
alldata["test"] = "Long name" (or "[Long name]") via a series of code.
Am I missing something? I don't think using $.toEvalJSON is the right way to go because I haven't transformed the object into JSON. I'd rather not do a string.replace either because I'd have to capture every possible type of input that is encoded.
Thank you!

If your question is how to remove the encoding, you could always use
unescape(s)
See Escape and Unescape Functions

The issue is related to the fact that I failed to mention that the object was being assigned the string as a result of a .serialize() command. Hence a urldecode() will work perfectly.

Escaping dilemma in Javascript

I have the following
var id='123';
newDiv.innerHTML = "";
Which renders in my HTML.
The problem I have is that I wish to take the call to the method TestFunction, and use as a string parameter in my function StepTwo(string, boolean), which would ideally end up in live HTML as shown...
notice how the TestFunction is a string here (it is executed within StepTwo using eval).
I have tried to format my JS as by :
newDiv.innerHTML = "";
but while this appears to me correct in my IDE, in the rendered HTML, it as garbelled beyond belief.
Would appreciate if anyone could point me in the right direction. Thanks!

One of the biggest capital failures on the internet is creating html in javascript by gluing strings together.
var mya = document.createElement("a");
mya.href="#";
mya.onclick = function(){
StepTwo(function(){
TestFunction('123', false );
}, true );
};
newDiv.innerHTML = "";
newDiv.appendChild(mya);
This Eliminates the need for any fancy escaping stuff.
( I probably should do 'onclick' differently, but this should work, I'm trying hard not to just use jQuery code to do everything )
Heres how I would do it in jQuery:
jQuery(function($){
var container = $("#container");
var link = document.createElement("a"); /* faster than $("<a></a>"); */
$(link).attr("href", "Something ( or # )" );
$(link).click( function(){
var doStepTwo = function()
{
TestFunction('123', true );
};
StepTwo( doStepTwo, false ); /* StepTwo -> doStepTwo -> TestFunction() */
});
container.append(link);
});
There is no good excuse for gluing strings together in Javascript
All it does is ADD overhead of html parsing back into dom structures, and ADD potential for XSS based broken HTML. Even beloved google get this wrong in some of their advertising scripts and have caused epic failures in many cases I have seen ( and they don't want to know about it )
I don't understand Javascript is the only excuse, and it's NOT a good one.

Try using " instead of \"
newDiv.innerHTML = "<a href="#"...

You should be using " not " or \" inside an HTML string quoted with double-quotes.
NewDiv.innerHTML = "";
There's probably a better way to do this - any time you find yourself using eval() you should stand back and look for a different solution.

You claim that eval is the right thing to do here. I'm not so sure.
Have you considered this approach:
and in your StepTwo function
function StepTwo(func,args,flag){
//do what ever you do with the flag
//instead of eval use the function.apply to call the function.
func.apply(args);
}

You could create the a element and attach to the click event using DOM Methods.
A Javascript Framework (like the ubiquitous jQuery) would make this a lot easier.

Your biggest problem is using eval, it leads to so many potential problems that it's nearly always better to find an alternative solution.
Your immediate problem is that what you really have is
as the next " after the start of the onclick attribute, closes it. Use " as others have suggested. And don't use eval.

You need to alternate your " and '.
Maybe you don't need quotes around the 123, because of Javascripts flexible typing. Pass it without quotes but treat it as a string within TestFunction.

Hey guys, thanks for all the answers. I find that the quot; seems to work best.
I'll give you guys some votes up once I get more reputation!
In regards to eval(), what you see in the question is a very small snapshot of the application being developed. I understand the woes of eval, however, this is one of those one in a million situations where it's the correct choice for the situation at hand.
It would be understood better if you could see what these functions do (have given them very generic names for stackoverflow).
Thanks again!

The best way is to create the element with document.createElement, but if you're not willing to, I guess you could do or use ".
In your code:
newDiv.innerHTML = "";
If it doesn't work, try changing "\'" to "\\'".
Remember that the " character is used to open and close the attribute on HTML tags. If you use it in the attribute's value, the browser will understand it as the close char.
Example:
<input type="text" value="foo"bar"> will end up being <input type="text" value="foo">.

...

I know this is hella' old now, but if anyone has issues with escaped strings when using eval (and you absolutely have to use eval), I've got a way to avoid problems.
var html = '';
eval('(function(div, html){div.innerHTML = html;})')(newDiv, html);
So, what's going on here?
eval creates a function that contains two parameters, div and html and returns it.
The function is immediately run with the parameters to the right of the eval function. This is basically like an IIFE.
In this case
var myNewMethod = eval('(function(div, html){div.innerHTML = html;})');
is basically the same as:
var myNewMethod = function(div, html){div.innerHTML = html;}
and then we're just doing this:
myNewMethod(newDiv, html); //where html had the string containing markup
I would suggest not using eval. If it can't be avoided, or if you control all the inputs and there's no risk of injection then this will help in cases where string escapes are an issue.
I also tend to use Function, but it isn't any more secure.
Here's the snippet I use:
var feval = function(code) {
return (new Function(code))();
}