JSON parse - single quote inside name

Question

In Django template I have printed out data like this:

P.place = '{{place.json|safe}}';

Then in JavaScript file I'm paring it like that:

place = JSON.parse(P.place);

Everything is fine for data like that:

{"category": "Cars", "name": "Z"}

Because string looks like that:

P.place = '{"category": "Cars", "name": "Z"}'

So, I can parse it using JSON.parse method witch accept strings as input.

Problem is when I get data like that:

{"category": "Cars", "name": "Wojtek's Z"}

Because than input string for JSON parser looks like that:

'{"category": "Cars", "name": "Wojtek'

I cannot escape single quote inside JSON string, because then JSON string become invalid. From the same reason I cannot replace surrounding quotes by double and escape double quotes inside JSON string.

My solution looks like that:

In HTML template:

P.place = {{place.json|safe}};

Then in JavaScript

var place = JSON.stringify(P.place);
place = JSON.parse(place);

It works, but it is not optimal solution IMHO.

How to solve this problem in more cleaver way?

You MUST quote apostrophes within JSON, there's no way around that. But usually you can escape it, if defining object using "\'". Or if you prefer, unicode escape \u0027 (I think). — StaxMan, Nov 04 '11 at 17:36
You can't quote single apostrophes. Parse error on line 2: {"ff": "f\'f"} So I cannot solve my problem using your proposition. — Wojciech Bednarski, Nov 05 '11 at 16:55

Moishe Lettvin · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-04T17:33:14.330

8

I can think of two possibilities:

Create a script element of type application/json, inject your template data into it, then read its data, eg.

<script id="place-json" type="application/json">
  {{place.json|safe}}
</script>
<script type="application/javascript">
  P.place = $('#place-json').text();
</script>

Or, manually escape the single quotes before injecting the string, eg.

simplejson.dumps(yourdata).replace("'", r"\'")

edited Nov 04 '11 at 17:33

answered Nov 04 '11 at 17:16

Moishe Lettvin

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Thanks for the answer! However I think this solution is more overhead then mine. BTW, we cannot use id in script element. – Wojciech Bednarski Nov 04 '11 at 17:23
Why can't you use id inside the script element? – Moishe Lettvin Nov 04 '11 at 17:28
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2741441/giving-the-script-tag-an-id for info about id in script element. Also I suspect either is less overhead than stringifying and then re-parsing the JSON, though you should of course benchmark and see. – Moishe Lettvin Nov 04 '11 at 17:29
If you need your HTML to be 100% spec-compliant, you could use the second solution I gave instead. (btw, that's the solution I use in my code) – Moishe Lettvin Nov 04 '11 at 17:38
After a while I experienced the Enlightenment and realized that your solution is the best option I have. With one small change about id. – Wojciech Bednarski Nov 17 '11 at 21:50
Yeah, I'm using the – Moishe Lettvin Nov 18 '11 at 14:46
2

I wrapped script by div tag, and then $('#place-json script').text(); – Wojciech Bednarski Nov 18 '11 at 15:49

JSON parse - single quote inside name

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