JQuery selector: how to escape special characters in a variable inserted into the selector

Question

I have a variable that I want to use in a selector but the variable contains special characters. Is there a way to do this?

hasSpecialChr='dynamicVar[1][3]';

element = $('li.parent#'+hasSpecialChr);

Edit: Answered in first comment below.

Quick google search of your question : https://learn.jquery.com/using-jquery-core/faq/how-do-i-select-an-element-by-an-id-that-has-characters-used-in-css-notation/ — Karl-André Gagnon, Aug 24 '16 at 14:57
possible duplicate of: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/739695/jquery-selector-value-escaping — JonSG, Aug 24 '16 at 15:06
As stated by @Karl-André Gagnon The answer is to use a function to strip out the characters as described by JQuery docs https://learn.jquery.com/using-jquery-core/faq/how-do-i-select-an-element-by-an-id-that-has-characters-used-in-css-notation/ — Phil, Aug 24 '16 at 16:14

MohammadReza Mahmoudi · Answer 1 · 2016-08-24T15:10:14.453

0

Try this:

hasSpecialChr='dynamicVar\\[1\\]\\[3\\]';
element = $('li.parent#'+hasSpecialChr);

edited Aug 24 '16 at 15:10

answered Aug 24 '16 at 15:02

I don't think this works. I think they need $("#dynamicVar\\\[1\\\]\\\[3\\\]"); – JonSG Aug 24 '16 at 15:08
yeah i tried it, it doesn't work. the \\ just escapes the first character after it. – Phil Aug 24 '16 at 15:09

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 24 '16 at 15:15

0

This may solve your problem:

s.replace(/[^a-z\d\s]+/gi, "");

removes all except letters, numbers and white space.

hasSpecialChr='dynamicVar[1][3]';
hasSpecialChr.replace(/[^a-z\d\s]+/gi, "");
element = $('li.parent#'+hasSpecialChr);

answered Aug 24 '16 at 15:15

Mohan Dere

2 Answers2