Put JSON data into html form input hidden?

Question

I'm building a rich web application that uses a lot of data. When I'm building it I found that I was repeating myself over and over.

This is the problem. I need to put hidden application logic into HTML elements to represent the data being viewed by the client.

This is a solution I found some time ago:

<a href="bla" data-itemId="1" .... more data. 

There are two problems with this method.

1. I can't represent arrays.
2. It's just ugly.

I searched for a solution but did not find anything. I also went to facebook, opened firebug, and found this:

{"actor":"19034719952","target_fbid":"454811929952","target_profile_id":"19034719952","type_id":"7","source":"1","assoc_obj_id":"","source_app_id":"","extra_story_params":[],"content_timestamp":"1324385453","check_hash":"9eabc3553e8a2fb6"} 

This json was inside an input[type=hidden] element.

I tried to do the same thing with json_encode();

<input type="hidden" name="track" value="{"_id":{"$id":"4eee908f615c2102e9010000"},"link":"george-wassouf-flag-of-my-heart-longing","file":"\/m\/tracks\/t.4eee908daca2a3.49941874.mp3","lyrics":null,"freezed":false,"hits":0,"images":{"large":"\/assets\/static\/default.track.large.jpg","thumb":"\/assets\/static\/default.track.thumb.jpg","icon":"\/assets\/static\/default.track.icon.jpg"},"duration":"300","created":{"sec":1324257423,"usec":78000},"albums":[{"_id":{"$id":"4eee8d63615c21f6e7000000"},"names":{"ar":"\u0643\u0644\u0627\u0645\u0643 \u064a\u0627 \u062d\u0628\u064a\u0628\u064a","en":"Kalamak ya Habibi"},"link":"george-wassouf-kalamak-ya-habibi","images":{"original":"\/m\/pics\/albums\/o.4eee8d612c3183.11879972.jpg","poster":"\/m\/pics\/albums\/p.4eee8d63967072.02645896.jpg","large":"\/m\/pics\/albums\/l.4eee8d63a89111.20372767.jpg","small":"\/m\/pics\/albums\/s.4eee8d63b18927.47242533.jpg","thumb":"\/m\/pics\/albums\/t.4eee8d63b7f1f4.11879932.jpg","icon":"\/m\/pics\/albums\/i.4eee8d63bf1304.59902753.jpg"}},{"_id":{"$id":"4eee8d63615c21f6e7000000"},"name":"Kalamak ya Habibi","link":"george-wassouf-kalamak-ya-habibi"}],"name":"Flag of my heart longing","title":"Flag of my heart longing","mp3":"\/m\/tracks\/t.4eee908daca2a3.49941874.mp3","poster":"\/m\/pics\/artists\/p.4eee85cd7ed579.65275366.jpg","artists":[{"_id":{"$id":"4eee85cd615c21ece6000000"},"name":"George Wassouf","link":"george-wassouf"}]}" /> 

But when I try getting the value I get this {.

I have tried all constants like JSON_HEX_TAG and did not find any questions of this type.

How can I put JSON into HTML correctly and then get it with jquery/javascript?

Answer 1

Your string is correct, but it cannot be defined in HTML because it contains double quotes.

HTML requires you to escape double quotes when you are defining a String that is itself enclosed within double quotes. The appropriate way of doing this is using the HTML entity:

value="""

From PHP:

Use htmlspecialchars or htmlentities (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars.php). In any case, you normally should be using this over EVERY value you write to the client browser (not doing so may result in security risks).

From Javascript:

If you need to do this from Javascript, you can programatically set the value of the hidden element (provided your JSON string is already contained in a Javascript variable). This way you don't have to worry about encoding the string literal:

hiddenElement.value = yourString;

In order to get an escape function you can use, maybe check this thread: Escaping HTML strings with jQuery .

Answer 2

Best way for me was to use html & quot;

for example i do this:

 <input type="hidden" id="v" value="[{&quot;id&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}]" > 

instead of

 <input type="hidden" id="v" value="[{"id":"1"}]" >