Undetermined String Literal Error with DIV-Tag

Question

I have a Javascript / JQuery problem.

I get unterminated string literal when I use this code:

var newInfo = '<div><span class="testClass"><a title="edit" href="'+link+'">'+oldVal+'</a></span></div>';

If I delete the </div> tag, it works... But I need this. I am totally out of ideas.

Maybe you can help, thanks.

Where (as in IDE, Browser console, Output, etc) are you getting this error? — bPratik, Nov 22 '12 at 14:14
See this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/227552/common-sources-of-unterminated-string-literal — Chris Moutray, Nov 22 '12 at 14:16

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 22 '12 at 14:21

1

Escape your slashes.

var newInfo = '<div><span class="testClass"><a title="edit" href="' + link + '">' + oldVal + '<\/a><\/span><\/div>';

You could also just build your html as actual DOM elements instead of a string (which avoids a lot of pitfalls, including this one).

var div = $('<div />'),
    span = $('<span />').addClass('testClass'),
    a = $('<a />').text(oldVal).attr({
        "href": link,
        "title": "edit"
    }),
    newInfo = div.append(span.append(a));

answered Nov 22 '12 at 14:21

pete

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Thanks, that works just fine too.. But I don't understand why. – rattlex Nov 22 '12 at 14:31
@rattlex: `/` can have a special meaning in a lot of JavaScript strings, especially when you're passing it to `innerHTML` or a regex, or if it's in a JSON string. In 'innerHTML`, `/` generally only has a special meaning when immediately preceded by '<', so `` in particular needs to be escaped (`<\/`). See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6117886/two-part-question-on-javascript-forward-slash, http://www.irt.org/articles/js169/#4.7, or https://www.google.com/search?q=why+escape+forward+slash+in+javascript+string for more details. – pete Nov 22 '12 at 16:01

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 22 '12 at 14:13

0

Try to use

var newInfo = '<di'+'v><span class="testClass"><a title="edit" href="'+link+'">'+oldVal+'</a></span></di'+'v>';

Seperating the div tags helped me on a similar problem

answered Nov 22 '12 at 14:13

t0.

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Oh my god, why? Thanks that solves the problem... Thanks a lot!! – rattlex Nov 22 '12 at 14:14

Undetermined String Literal Error with DIV-Tag

2 Answers2