Escape apostrophe as \' with c:out JSP

Question

I have an object field with person\'s last name.

If I use ${person.lastName}, I get O\'Brian

If I use

Answer 1

You could define a new EL function that escapes strings for you.

E.g.

In Java

public class MyStringUtil {
  public static String escapeJs( String str )
  {
    // escape the string (e.g. replace ' with \')
  }
}

In a tag library descriptor file:

<function>
 <name>escapeJs</name>
 <function-class>package.to.MyStringUtil</function-class>
 <function-signature>
   java.lang.String escapeJs( java.lang.String )
 </function-signature>
</function>

Then in your JSP (assuming you've included your .tld with a prefix of foo:

<a href="#" 
  class="delete" 
  onclick="if(confirm('${foo:escapeJs(person.lastName)}' + _('Are you sure you want to delete this application?'))) {deleteApplication('${application.identifier}')};return false;"><bean:message key="application.delete"/></a>

Answer 2

Store it as O'brian in the database, but before displaying it do a find replace to convert any ' to \'