jsesc

What is jsesc?

The jsesc npm package is a library for escaping JavaScript strings while generating the shortest possible valid ASCII-only output. It's useful for avoiding syntax errors when embedding data in JavaScript code or for preparing data to be JSON-encoded.

What are jsesc's main functionalities?

String escaping

Escapes any occurrences of U+2028 (line separator) and U+2029 (paragraph separator) among other potentially problematic characters in JavaScript strings, making the output safe for inclusion in HTML/JavaScript templates.

"jsesc('foo \u2028 bar \u2029 baz')"

JSON escaping

Converts an object to a JSON string, ensuring that the output is safe to use in JavaScript by escaping any characters that could cause syntax errors or security issues.

"jsesc({ 'foo': 'bar' }, { 'json': true })"

ASCII-only output

Escapes non-ASCII symbols into their Unicode escape sequences to produce an ASCII-only output. This is particularly useful for minimizing encoding issues or for environments that do not fully support Unicode.

"jsesc('foo © bar ≠ baz 𝌆 qux', { 'es6': false })"

Other packages similar to jsesc

he

The 'he' package is an HTML entity encoder/decoder written in JavaScript. While it focuses more on HTML entities, it shares the concept of transforming strings into a safer format, similar to what jsesc does for JavaScript strings.

escape-string-regexp

This package is designed to escape any characters that have special meaning in regular expressions. It's similar to jsesc in the sense that it makes strings safe for a specific context (regular expressions), but it does not cover the broader scope of JavaScript string escaping that jsesc does.

entities

Similar to 'he', 'entities' is another package for encoding and decoding HTML entities. It offers functionality that overlaps with jsesc's when dealing with strings intended for HTML, but jsesc provides additional features for JavaScript-specific escaping.