Putting regular expressions in strings - javascript

I am trying to dynamically create a javascript file B using a javascript file A (written in Node.js) by writing a string from A to a .js file B. I want to use regular expressions in the javascript file B. This requires me to put the regex functions for B in a string in A. However, whenever I use the backslash (escape character), file A interprets the regex function immediately, instead of treating it as a string.
Some code to help in understanding my problem:
var mongodata = "Some String with square and curly brackets ]}{]]},]},}{}{{}},{[[][,][,";
mongodata = 'var mongodata = ' + mongodata + ';\n function setData(){mongodata = mongodata.replace(/\[ /g,"").replace(/\] \},/g,"</td></tr>").replace(/\] \}/g,"</td></tr>"); document.getElementById("mongodata").innerHTML = mongodata;}';
That mongodata string is intended to be used as the content of a dynamically created .js file.
I understand the wording of this question may be slightly confusing. Please let me know if more clarification is needed.

In your string, just like the \n character, all the other backslashed expressions are being evaluated, so you must escape the backslashes. In other words, write a RegExp that outputs a RegExp. The proper way of escaping the backslashes themselves is \\\ , but you might need to escape other characters as well to prevent their evaluation.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your problem, but maybe put the string being assigned to mongodata in escaped quotes:
var mongodata = "\'Some String with square and curly brackets ]}{]]},]},}{}{{}},{[[][,][,\'";

Bit of a lottery this one. I too don't quite understand your question.
You can escape all of the RegEx special characters (. * ? [ ] Etc). You can also dynamically create RegEx operators using:
var objRegEx = new RegExp( pattern, modifiers );
Like I say, lottery... stab in the dark...

Related

Escape string for concatentaion with string and template literals

I need to concatenate untrusted* data into a javascript string, but I need it to work for all types of strings (single quoted, double quoted, or backtick quoted)
And ideally, I need it to work for multiple string types at once
I could use string replace, but this is usually a bad idea.
I was using JSON.stringify, but this only escapes double quotes, not single or backtick.
Other answers that I've found deal with escaping only a single type of quote at a time (and never backticks).
An example of what I need:
untrustedData = 'a String with \'single quotes\', \"double quotes\" and \`backticks\` in it';
const someJS = `console.log(\`the thing is "${escapingFunctionHere(untrustedString)}"\`)`
someJS will be passed to new Function
* N.B. In my context "untrusted" here doesn't mean potentially malicous, but it does need to cope with quotes, escapes and the like.
I am building javascript code dynamically, the constructed code will not be in any way web-facing. In fact its likely that I am the only one who will use this tool directly or indirectly.
I am happy to accept the minimal associated risks
NOTE TO OTHERS: Be sure you understand the risks before doing this kind of thing.
For those interested, I am writing a parser creator. Given an input ebnf grammar file, it will output a JS class that can be used to parse things.
I really do need to output code here.
If all you need to do is escape single quotes ', double quotes " and backticks `, then using replace to prepend a backslash \ should be enough:
untrustedData.replace(/['"`]/g, '\\$&')
const untrustedData = 'I \'am\' "a `string`"';
console.log(untrustedData);
const escapedData = untrustedData.replace(/['"`]/g, '\\$&');
console.log(escapedData);

How to make replace() global in JavaScript

I know this question had been asked lot of time but i could not find solution. I have some smilies which each of them has code to be rendered as smiley using replace() , but I get syntax error, I don't know why and how to render my code :/ to smiley
txt = " Hi :/ ";
txt.replace("/\:/\/g","<img src='img/smiley.gif'>");
Your regular expression doesn't need to be in quotes. You should escape the correct / forward slash (you were escaping the wrong slash) and assign the replacement, since .replace doesn't modify the original string.
txt = " Hi :/ ";
txt = txt.replace(/:\//g,"<img src='img/smiley.gif'>");
Based on jonatjano's brilliant deduction, I think you should add a little more to the regular expression to avoid such calamities as interfering with URLs.
txt = txt.replace(/:\/(?!/)/g,"<img src='img/smiley.gif'>");
The above ensures that :// is not matched by doing a negative-lookahead.
There are two problems in the first argument of replace() it escapes the wrong characters and it uses a string that seems to contain a regex instead of a real RegExp.
The second line should read:
txt.replace(/:\//g,"<img src='img/smiley.gif'>");
/:\//g is the regex. The first and the last / are the RegExp delimiters, g is the "global" RegExp option (String.replace() needs a RegExp instead of a string to do a global replace).
The content of the regex is :/ (the string you want to find) but because / has a special meaning in a RegExp (see above), it needs to be escaped and it becomes :\/.

store arbitrary JavaScript code into a string variable

I have a program (written in Clojure) that injects some JS code into a JS function, then evaluates it via Nashorn. I have no control over the code passes (it may contain quotes, simple quotes...).
It looks like this :
;; Clojure
(eval-str (str "print(evaluateCode(\"" s " \"))"))
// equivalent code in pseudo-js just for those not reading Clojure fluently
evalJS("println(evaluateCode(" + arbitraryJS + "))")
The evaluateCode function is already loaded.
// already loaded in Nashorn
function evaluateCode(code) {
// do something with the code
//...
eval(code);
}
This works fine for simple programs, ex. if arbitraryJS = "var a=123; print(a); return a;".
But as soon as the program contains quotes, it breaks. ex. "var a = 123; print("a is now", a);"
Note : the actual code is there.
You need to escape the string. place a \ before every ".
If you need the \ itself use it double \\
Sorry, I am not allowed to comment yet... :/
I would suggest to escape the quotes and backslashes. I would go for single quotes as JS string delimiters, as in Clojure you are bound to use double quotes for delimiting strings:
;; Clojure
(eval-str (str "print(evaluateCode('"
(clojure.string/replace s #"(['\\\\])" "\\\\$1")
"'))"))
The find and replace patterns each have four backslashes. As in Clojure backslash is an escape character, they actually denote only two backslashes. In regular expressions backslash is also an escape character, so in the end they just denote one, literal backslash each. So this means "prefix any occurrence of backslash or quote with a backslash."
You shouldn't worry about comments and templates and such, as the escape characters only exist in Clojure (after the replace), but are resolved the moment the complete string is parsed by the Javascript engine. The evaluateCode function will never see the escape characters, but the plain value of s.
Example
;; Clojure
(def s "a = 'test'; // 'test' used here")
(eval-str (str "print(evaluateCode('"
(clojure.string/replace s #"(['\\\\])" "\\\\$1")
"'))"))
This will evaluate to:
(eval-str "print(evaluateCode('a = \\'test\\'; // \\'test\\' used here'))")
Note that the backslashes are doubled in the above representation, but that is because Clojure needs that. The actual string only has single occurrences of the backslashes. If instead of calling eval-str, you would call println with the same argument, you would get this output:
print(evaluateCode('a = \'test\'; // \'test\' used here'))
That is the string interpreted by the Javascript engine, and so it interprets the backslashes as escape characters, passing the clean string to evaluateCode.
So if evaluateCode looked like this:
function evaluateCode(code) {
alert(code);
}
It would produce this alert:
a = 'test'; // 'test' used here
So, the escaping backslashes are not there at all in Javascript. It will see the exact same value as the Clojure symbol s represents.
In the after end I used the Apache Commons Lang StringUtils since the other solutions did not work. See it here.

RegExp for remove first and last char and turn ending double slashes into single

I have the following Javascript code to obtain the inner string from an RegExp:
Function.prototype.method = function (name,func){
this.prototype[name] = func;
return this;
};
RegExp.method('toRawString', function(){
return this.toString().replace(/^.(.*).$/,"$1");
});
The purpose of this, is to avoid in string double quoting. For example, if you have a Windows file path "C:\My Documents\My Folder\MyFile.file", you can use it like the following:
alert(/C:\My Documents\My Folder\MyFile.file/.toRawString());
However it is not working for ""C:\My Documents\My Folder\" since it causes syntax error. The only way to avoid it is to keep double quoting at the end of the string. Thus it will be written
alert(/C:\My Documents\My Folder\\/.toRawString());
The fact is any odd number of back slashes on the end of the string will be an error, so all ending back slashes must be double escaped. It will not be hard to use a multiple line small implementation, but are there any single RegExp solution?
NOTE
When using toRawString the RegExp object for this is usually NOT going to be used for any other purpose except for that method. I just want to use the syntax of RegExp to avoid double back slashes in source code. Unfortunately the ending double slashes cannot be easily avoid. I think another workaround is to force a space at the end but that is another question then.
UPDATE
I finally solved the "another question" and posted the code here.
OK, I get what you're trying to do! It's hacky : )
Try something like:
return this.toString().slice(1, -1).replace(/\\+$/, '\\')
Hope that helps.
If you want to include the double quotes in the string just wrap it with single quotes.
s = '"C:\\My Documents\\My Folder\\MyFile.file"'
console.log(s) // Output => "C:\My Documents\My Folder\MyFile.file"
This produces a syntax error:
/C:\My Documents\/
But that regular expression could be written correctly like this:
/C:\\My Documents\\/
Or like this:
new RegExp("C:\\\\My Documents\\\\")
I think your function is just fine and is returning a correct result. Regular expressions just can't end with an unpaired backslash. It's not that you're double escaping - you're just escaping the escape character.
This would produce an error too:
new RegExp("C:\\My Documents\\")
A regular expression like this, for instance, can't be written without a pair of backslashes:
/C:\\What/
Without the second backslash, \W would be interpreted as a special character escape sequence. So escaping the escape character isn't only necessary at the end. It's required anywhere it might be interpreted as the beginning of an escape sequences. For that reason, it might be a good rule of thumb to always use two backslashes to indicate a backslash literal in a regular expression.

Can you create a JavaScript string without using ' or " quotes?

I have a JS file with some XML in it, where the XML is supposed to get converted to a word by the server.
E.g.
var ip = "<lang:cond><lang:when test="$(VAR{'ip_addr'})">$(VAR{'ip_addr'})</lang:when></lang:cond>";
This gets converted to:
var ip = "192.168.0.0";
However, in case the server doesn't work as intended, I don't want there to be a syntax error, and this is VERY important. Currently there would be a syntax error because the language uses both types of quotes. I can't think of a way to get around this, but perhaps there's another way to do quotes in JavaScript? Or to create a string?
For example, in Python I'd use triple quotes:
ip = """<lang:cond><lang:when test="$(VAR{'ip_addr'})">$(VAR{'ip_addr'})</lang:when></lang:cond>"""
Anyone have a bright idea?
I have had to create strings without quotes for a project as well. We were delivering executable client javascript to the browser for an internal website. The receiving end strips double and single quotes when displayed. One way I have found to get around quotes is by declaring my string as a regular expression.
var x = String(/This contains no quotes/);
x = x.substring(1, x.length-1);
x;
Using String prototype:
String(/This contains no quotes/).substring(1).slice(0,-1)
Using String.fromCharCode
String.fromCharCode(72,69,76,76,79)
Generate Char Codes for this:
var s = "This contains no quotes";
var result = [];
for (i=0; i<s.length; i++)
{
result.push(s.charCodeAt(i));
}
result
In JavaScript, you can escape either type of quote with a \.
For example:
var str = "This is a string with \"embedded\" quotes.";
var str2 = 'This is a string with \'embedded\' quotes.';
In particular, your block of JavaScript code should be converted to:
var ip = "<lang:cond><lang:when test=\"$(VAR{'ip_addr'})\">$(VAR{'ip_addr'})</lang:when></lang:cond>";
In general, I always prefer to escape the quotes instead of having to constantly switch quote types, depending upon what type of quotes may be used within.
I was looking for a solution to the same problem. Someone suggested looking at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/template_strings which proved helpful. After reading about half the article, it stated that you can create strings with the backward tick character. (`)
Try this :)
document.getElementById('test').innerHTML = `'|'|'|"|"`
<div id="test" style="font-size:3em;"></div>
You can't create a string without using a single or double quote, as even calling the String() prototype object directly still requires you to pass it the string.
Inside XML you would use CDATA, but inside JS you'll have to just escape the '\"strings\"' "\'appropriately\'"

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