xslt, javascript and unescaped html entities

Question

i have a tiny little problem with xslt, js and html entities, eg. within a template:

Answer 1

If the xsl:output method is html, the CDATA section would work. If the xsl:output method is xml, the < and > signs would still be converted.

To get around this problem, you may define the script element to not behave this way using the xsl:output element. you can also force the method of the output using xml or html

<xsl:output method="xml" cdata-section-elements="script" />
...
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
<![CDATA[
  for (var i = 0; i &lt; foo.length; i++) { … }
]]>
</script>

Answer 2

i always thought the xslt processor would leave the content of a script element unescaped when using the html output method

You are correct: http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#section-HTML-Output-Method

The html output method should not perform escaping for the content of the script and style elements.
For example, a literal result element written in the stylesheet as
    <script>if (a &lt; b) foo()</script>
or
    <script><![CDATA[if (a < b) foo()]]></script>
should be output as
    <script>if (a < b) foo()</script>

If your XSLT processor is doing otherwise, it's a bug.

However, in any case it's a good idea to avoid '<' and '&' in embedded scripts, and an even better idea to kick all the code out into a linked .js file.

Answer 3

The CDATA blocks should have worked; they always have for me. What's your disable-output-escaping value?

UPDATE: Using Xalan, with disable-output-escaping on its default, which I'm pretty sure is no, I have the following in my working XSL files:

• No CDATA block:

  for (var i = 0; i `<` foo.length; i++) {
  …
  }
  

• CDATA block:

  <![CDATA[
  
  for (var i = 0; i < foo.length; i++) { … }
  
  ]]>
  

Answer 4

Try removing the double slash before the CDATA of your third solution

Answer 5

ok. long story, short answer:

it seems that with some libxslt versions the xslt processor leaves the content of a <script/> element unescaped when using the html output method, with others not ... therefore the following is recommended:

<script type="text/javascript">
    <xsl:value-of select="/some/node"/>
    <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">
        // ^ does the trick ...
        for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
            //            ^ works
        }
    </xsl:text>
</script>