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Trying to escape quotes in a href tag

I have the following line of code,
$("#busdata").append("<div>" + data.response.results[i].webUrl + "</div>");
I essentially want the "data.response.results[i].webUrl" to replace the url string, but I'm not quite sure how to escape the quotes properly.

You can escape quotes by replacing them with \"
or just use single quotes - '
So "<div><a href="url">" becomes
"<div><a href=\"url\">" or "<div><a href='url'>"

a single quote ' and a string concatenator +
$("#busdata").append("<div><a href='"+ data.response.results[i].webUrl +"'>" + data.response.results[i].webUrl + "</a></div>");

Your syntax is wrong. You need to escape quotes. Change your <a href="url"> to <a href=\"url\"> like this:
$("#busdata").append("<div>" + data.response.results[i].webUrl + "</div>");
Or if you feel that's a bit tough, you can exchange the quotes, ' for ":
$("#busdata").append('<div>' + data.response.results[i].webUrl + "</div>");
Else, if you are trying to add the URL from the response:
$("#busdata").append("<div>" + data.response.results[i].webUrl + "</div>");

if url is a variable
$("#busdata").append("<div><a href='" + url +"'>" + data.response.results[i].webUrl + "</a></div>");
and if you want to write by yourself
$("#busdata").append("<div><a href='url'>" + data.response.results[i].webUrl + "</a></div>");

You can store it in variable instead :
var url = data.response.results[i].webUrl;
$("#busdata").append("<div>" + url + "</div>");
Hope this helps.

Simply do it following my example:
var a = $('<a />', {
href: 'url here',
text: 'text here'
}); $('body').append(a);

You could do this :
$("#busdata").append("<div><a href='"+data.response.results[i].webUrl +"'>" + data.response.results[i].webUrl + "</a></div>");
Since you are using double quotes for the string to append, you can use single quotes around the variable in the href attribute and then add that variable.

This is most easily achieved by not building HTML by smashing strings together in the first place.
$("#busdata").append(
$("<div />").append(
$("<a />").attr("href", data.response.results[i].webUrl)
)
);

Escaping quotes is not necessary
$("#busdata")
.append("<div><a href="
+ data.response.results[i].webUrl
+ ">"
+ data.response.results[i].webUrl
+ "</a></div>"
);

Parentheses in string of javascript function call

I have a loop that creates links with a javascript function call in the onClick events and uses the text returned from a database as one of the parameters. My issues I am having is that sometimes this text being returned has parenthesis in them which is causing a syntax error in my code.
Example:
code:
formResults += "<a onclick='openForm(" + this.displayText + "," + this.ID + ");'>" + this.displayText + "</a>";
HTMLDisplay:
<a onclick="openForm(Example Form (Example Form 1) Application Instructions ,1108);">Example Form (Example Form 1) Application Instructions </a>
as you can see the name of the form contains a set of parenthesis. Is there anyway I can include these? The reason I need to is because the function points to another system that uses the ID and displayText in order to render the proper form.
thank you

The parenthesis aren't the problem, it's the lack of quotes inside the function.
formResults += "<a onclick='openForm(\'" + this.displayText + "," + this.ID + "\');'>" + this.displayText + "</a>";
This below snippet (from yours)
`openForm(Example Form...`)
Will throw an error because it's looking for variables Example and so on, quote that string!

I strongly suggest
code:
formResults += '<a class="openForm" data-text="'+this.displayText + '" id="'+this.ID + '">' + this.displayText + '</a>';
HTMLDisplay:
<a class="openForm" data-text="Example Form (Example Form 1) Application Instructions" id="1108">Example Form (Example Form 1) Application Instructions </a>
jQuery:
$(function() {
$(".openForm").on("click",function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
openForm($(this).data("text"),this.id);
});
});

Javascript creating a li element and assigning text to data-attribute is being truncated

In javascript I am creating a li element as per below which contains only the problem I am seeing.
The data-videoUrl is showing the full url, so all good there.
The issue is the entry.link and entry.title, while debugging, I verified the strings are within quotes. i.e. "This is a pod cast." The data-videoTitle and data-videoDesciption are being truncated though. i.e. "This" will show from the previous example.
I'm not sure what is occuring in the latter two data assignments as I've verified the text is not double quoted etc. What is occuring with the html5 data elements? I can provide a more complete example if needed.
var podItem = document.createElement("li");
podItem.innerHTML = entry.title
+ "<a data-videoUrl=" + entry.link + " "
+ "data-videoTitle=" + entry.title + " "
+ "data-videoDescription=" + entry.contentSnippet + " "
+ "</a>";
document.getElementById("podCastList").innerHTML += podItem.innerHTML;
Here is a the html being generated.
<a data-videourl="http://rss.cnn.com/~r/services/podcasting/studentnews/rss/~3/d3y4Nh_yiZQ/orig-sn-060614.cnn.m4v" data-videotitle="CNN" student="" news="" -="" june="" 6,="" 2014="" data-videodescription="For" our="" last="" show="" of="" the="" 2013-2014="" school="" year,="" cnn="" takes="" a="" look="" back,="" ahead,="" and="" at="" stories="" making="" ...="" <=""></a>
I'm sure there's something I'm not fully understanding. Why would the first data element get the text correctly, and the next two data elements break up the text as in: [data-videotitle="CNN" student="" news=""]. The text is a straight forward sentence quoted i.e. "CNN student news..."
Why would videoUrl work correctly and the other two not?

You need to add some quotes around the attributes...
podItem.innerHTML = entry.title
+ "<a data-videoUrl=\"" + entry.link + "\" "
+ "data-videoTitle=\"" + entry.title + "\" "
+ "data-videoDescription=\"" + entry.contentSnippet + "\" "
+ "</a>";
You'll also want to make sure you escape any quotes that are inside the attributes as well.

Javascript to build HTML

this one may be simple but it has eluded me. I have Javascript code which builds elements in the DOM (using JSON from a server script). Some of the elements have "onclick" calls that I want to pass the ID variable to.
I cannot seem to get the onclick="downloadImg("' + d.data_id + '")" syntax right. What should it be. The code below does not work. Thanks.
temp_html = temp_html + '<img src="/link/to/img.png" onclick="downloadImg("' + d.data_id + '")">';

If you use the double quotations, you will close the previous one, so you create a conflict. So replace " with a single quotation + escape \' like this:
temp_html = temp_html + '<img src="/link/to/img.png" onclick="downloadImg(\'' + d.data_id + '\')">';

Your line should be:
temp_html = temp_html + '<img src="/link/to/img.png" onclick="downloadImg(\\"' + d.data_id + '\\")">';
You basically have many layers of quotes so the
double slash
creates a
\"
in the output that escapes the quote once it gets outputted to HTML

<img src="/link/to/img.png" onclick="downloadImg("' + d.data_id + '")">';
This will resolve to something like: <img src="/link/to/img.png" onclick="downloadImg("1")">
As you can see you have double quotes inside double quotes. Something like this should do it:
<img src="/link/to/img.png" onclick="downloadImg(\'' + d.data_id + '\')">

Change your double quotes to single quotes and escape them:
onclick="downloadImg(\'' + d.data_id + '\')"

Add quote in javascript generated links

How do i fix this link in javascript.
Link
Its missing single quotes around 'Business'
Javascript:
html += "<option value='javascript:clientGalleryLink(" + titleArray[x] + ")'>" + titleArray[x] + "</option>";

use \ to escape the quotes
html += "<option value='javascript:clientGalleryLink(\"" + titleArray[x] + "\")'>" + titleArray[x] + "</option>";

<a href='javascript:clientGalleryLink("Business")'>Link</a>
html += "<option value='javascript:clientGalleryLink(\"" + titleArray[x] + "\")'>" + titleArray[x] + "</option>";
Could you please try this one out.
Thanks.

Try this to escape the attribute quotes and thus giving you the single inner quotes like you show in your example.
html += "<option value=\"javascript:clientGalleryLink('" + titleArray[x] + "')\">" + titleArray[x] + "</option>";

Escaping problems like this is why it's best to avoid creating JavaScript-in-HTML dynamically in strings. The javascript: pseudo-URL scheme should also never be used.
Instead, consider an ‘unobtrusive scripting’ approach: move the data out of an embedded JS string and into normal attributes, such as class or, if the link corresponds to a particular element on the page, the href itself:
<a class="gallerylink" href="#Business">Link</a>
for (var i= document.links.length; i-->0;) {
if (document.links[i].className==='gallerylink') {
document.links[i].onclick= function() {
clientGalleryLink(this.hash.substring(1));
return false;
};
}
}
The second example:
html += "<option value='javascript:clientGalleryLink(" + titleArray[x] + ")'>" + titleArray[x] + "</option>";
is just a mess. Aside from the lack of \' quoting around the titleArray value, and the lack of HTML-escaping or JS-string-literal-escaping on the titleArrays (so if you have '"<& characters in the title you've got problems).
Are you expecting the script to get executed when the option is chosen just because you've put it in the value? It won't.
Better to use the DOM objects than trying to mess around inserting JavaScript inside HTML inside JavaScript inside HTML. For example, if you're looking for a select box that calls clientGalleryLink every time the selected option is changed:
<div id="PlaceWhereYouWantToPutTheSelectBox"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var s= document.createElement('select');
for (var i= 0; i<titleArray.length; i++) {
s.options[i]= new Option(titleArray[i], titleArray[i]);
}
s.onchange= function() {
clientGalleryLink(this.options[this.selectedIndex].value);
};
document.getElementById('PlaceWhereYouWantToPutTheSelectBox').appendChild(s);
</script>
No ugly escaping necessary, no cross-site-scripting security holes.

add slashes:
\"" + titleArray[x] + "\"