PHP string to javascript can break the code - some character, i guess, is the issue?

Question

I am passing a PHP string into onclick. This text comes from YouTube (a video description). In some cases the string breaks the code.

Characters \n \r ' and " are removed so it is not obvious what character is the cause.

echo "<span onclick='update_hits(\"".$id."\");vidtxt=\"".$desc6."\";openVideo(\"".$v."\",\"".$sn." : ".addslashes($title)."\",0)'><img src='".$apng."' border='0' />Play large</span>";

I have tried everything I can think of to solve the issue but have not succeeded.

$desc6=nl2br($desc6);
$desc6=preg_replace('/[\x00-\x1f]/', '', $desc6);
$desc6=preg_replace('/\xc2[\x80-\x9f]/', '', $desc6);
$desc6=preg_replace('/[\x7f]/', '', $desc6);
$desc6=nl2br($desc6);
$desc6 = iconv("UTF-8", "UTF-8//IGNORE", $desc6); 
$desc6=preg_replace('~\p{C}+~u', '', $desc6);
$desc6=htmlspecialchars($desc6);
$desc6=preg_replace('/[\x00-\x1F\x7F]/', '', $desc6); 
$desc6=ereg_replace('[[:cntrl:]]', '', $desc6); 
$desc6 = str_replace(chr(127), "", $desc6); 
$desc6=preg_replace('/\bKa(\W|$)/i', '', $desc6);
$desc6=addslashes($desc6);

Most description strings work fine, even those with text in other languages. But something breaks this sometimes.

Stripping to just ascii, which would mean that I cannot display non-english languages, does work.

$desc6=preg_replace('/[^(\x20-\x7F)]*/','', $desc6);

The following allows all descriptions to work, but languages like Korean don't appear properly:

$desc6 = iconv("ISO-8859-1", "UTF-8//IGNORE", $desc6);

Any ideas?

ps:
$desc6=json_encode($desc6); breaks all :(

Do you even know what this is code does? I mean, you are doing some steps multiple times (e. g. nl2br, removing 0x7F). — Gumbo
– Gumbo, Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 18:09
They are filtering the UTF. I'll remove redundancy when I find the solution. — Blah479
– Blah479, Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 18:14
does your HTML page make sure its charset is UTF-8? <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">? Also do you have an example string that breaks your code? Link to your application? — Andy Jones
– Andy Jones, Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 18:21
Example is the description to this video : youtube.com/watch?v=r5RzCBBNgv4 On YouTube the description doesn't have some wierd symbols that I see (I get this text from gdata). — Blah479
– Blah479, Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 18:31

Gumbo · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-07 18:22:26Z

2

All you need is two functions:

json_encode to encode the JavaScript strings.
htmlspecialchars to encode the HTML attribute values.

Both in action:

echo "<span onclick='".htmlspecialchars("update_hits(".json_encode($id).");vidtxt=".json_encode($desc6).";openVideo(".json_encode($v).",".json_encode($sn." : ".$title).",0)", ENT_QUOTES)."'><img src='".htmlspecialchars($apng, ENT_QUOTES)."' border='0' />Play large</span>";

answered Jun 7, 2012 at 18:22

Gumbo

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8 Comments

Blah479 Over a year ago

Have tried this but it didn't help. Thanks for your reply though!

Blah479 Over a year ago

This doesn't look right to me. There seems to ' and "s missing ? I tried vidtxt=json_encode(\"".$fgh2."\"); but without success - all broken. Need ti add json script?

Gumbo Over a year ago

@SteveClarke Please try the example as I wrote it. It doesn’t need to be changed or adjusted in any way. It’s ready to be used as it is.

Blah479 Over a year ago

Also tried vidtxt=\"".json_encode($desc6)."\"; Doesn't work - breaks all.

Blah479 Over a year ago

The error is in $desc6 so I tried: $desc6=json_encode($desc6); first also. Same - so it is not your code but the json_encode() not working with the utf-8 strings

|

dda · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-07 18:22:34Z

0

.addslashes($title)."\",0) Shouldn't that be "\""

answered Jun 7, 2012 at 18:22

dda

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