How to replace or encode single and right double quotation mark in JavaScript?

Question

I have string contains this “No.” as you see that's not normal double quotes. I tried to encode it manually by using replace like this

var stmt = "select “No.”";
stmt = stmt.replace('“', '\u201c');
stmt = stmt.replace('”', '\u201d');

console.log(stmt);

But when I log stmt I find that nothing changed at all and logs this “No.”. How can I encode such special characters in Javascript? I'm using sequelize to insert this statement to the database and need it to be encoded to be displayed correctly inside a JSON string so the final result should be \u201cNo.\u201d

Just use single quotes or backticks? `'"'` or `\`"\``, or escape it in double quotes `"\""` — pilchard, Nov 28 '21 at 14:22
You may want to reference this answer regarding encoding issues: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53739238/utf8-encoding-issue-with-laravel — GenericUser, Nov 28 '21 at 14:31

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 28 '21 at 14:23

1

There's no need to use the unicode references. Just pass in the quotations as normal, within single quotes.

var stmt = "select “No.”";
stmt = stmt.replace('“', '"');
stmt = stmt.replace('”', '"');

console.log(stmt);

answered Nov 28 '21 at 14:23

GenericUser

3,003
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Yes, currently you are just replacing the quotes with themselves so the output remains the same. – Yash Sonalia Nov 28 '21 at 14:25
Anyway to encode it? Laravel encodes it thus it gets displayed the same in frontend without converting it into traditional quotes – PHP User Nov 28 '21 at 14:25
@YashSonalia, I'm not sure what you are trying to say. The incoming characters are clearly different than the ones that are being replaced. – GenericUser Nov 28 '21 at 14:26
Do you want to log this: ```"select \u201cNo.\u201d"``` – Yash Sonalia Nov 28 '21 at 14:32
@PHPUser, I added a comment to the main question that shows a similar problem in stack overflow. – GenericUser Nov 28 '21 at 14:32
Check this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/910793/detect-encoding-and-make-everything-utf-8 – Yash Sonalia Nov 28 '21 at 14:37
@YashSonalia exactly I want to log this `\u201cNo.\u201d` – PHP User Nov 28 '21 at 14:40
Okay, I'm posting the answer. – Yash Sonalia Nov 28 '21 at 14:42

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 28 '21 at 14:44

1

You need to use the escape character \ to prevent JS to interpret "\u201c" and "\u201d" as unicode characters.

Check this:


var stmt = "select “No.”";
stmt = stmt.replace('“', '\\u201c');
stmt = stmt.replace('”', '\\u201d');

console.log(stmt);

answered Nov 28 '21 at 14:44

Yash Sonalia

378
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no not yet trying to figure out the issue while inserting into MySQL – PHP User Nov 28 '21 at 15:20
1

logging the result will output only 1 backslash but it got inserted with the backslash into MySQL so I had to edit it to be `replace('“', '\\\u201c')` and the other replace statement as well. Thanks a lot for your effort I really appreciate it – PHP User Nov 28 '21 at 15:36

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 28 '21 at 14:27

1) It is better to replace all characters in a single go use regex /“|”/g:

var stmt = "select “No.”";
stmt = stmt.replace(/“|”/g, '"');

console.log(stmt);

2) You can also use replaceAll here as:

var stmt = "select “No.”";
stmt = stmt.replaceAll(/“|”/g, '"');

console.log(stmt);

3) You can also replace it using its unicode value as:

var stmt = "select “No.”";
stmt = stmt.replaceAll(/\u201C|\u201D/g, '"');

console.log(stmt);

How to replace or encode single and right double quotation mark in JavaScript?

3 Answers3