Javascript replace() using html entities not working

Question

I've got the following script, which successfully replaces < and > with the code indicated below. The idea here is that a user would put into the text box if they want "Bold me" to appear bolded on their blog.

$('.blogbody').each(function() {
  var string = $(this).html();
  $(this).html(string.replace('&lt;', '<span class="bold">'));
});

$('.blogbody').each(function() {
  var string = $(this).html();
  $(this).html(string.replace('&gt;', '</span>'));
});

The problem comes with other html entities. I'm going to simply my example. I want to replace the [ html entity with a paragraph tag, but none of the lines in this script work. I've tried documenting each code that related to the '[' character.

$('.blogbody').each(function() {
  var string = $(this).html();
  $(this).html(string.replace('&#x0005B;', '<p>'));
});

$('.blogbody').each(function() {
  var string = $(this).html();
  $(this).html(string.replace('&lbrack;', '<p>'));
});

$('.blogbody').each(function() {
  var string = $(this).html();
  $(this).html(string.replace('&lsqb;', '<p>'));
});

$('.blogbody').each(function() {
  var string = $(this).html();
  $(this).html(string.replace('&lbrack;', '<p>'));
});

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Feel free to document this as an answer so I can give you credit. — Jason Howard
– Jason Howard, Commented Jul 15, 2018 at 11:20

ibrahim mahrir · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-15 11:33:01Z

1

The character '[' is not a character entity so it is not encoded. Just pass it directly to replace:

string.replace('[' , '<p>')

edited Jul 15, 2018 at 11:33

answered Jul 15, 2018 at 11:29

ibrahim mahrir

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4 Comments

Jason Howard Over a year ago

I've just discovered that only the first instance of [ is replaced on the page. Any thoughts as to why? Thanks!

ibrahim mahrir Over a year ago

@JasonHoward That's how String#replace work. If you want to replace all insantces, you'll have to use a regex with the global modifier g: replace(/\[/g, '<p>'), or use split/join.

Jason Howard Over a year ago

Thank you so much!

ibrahim mahrir Over a year ago

@JasonHoward ... more on that here. And you're welcome!

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