Develop Reference

Javascript custom template engine

I'm trying to create a custom template engine in javascript but I'm having trouble getting started as I cannot extract tokens using regex.
Here are the requirements:
Variables are defined like this: $(variable)
Functions: $(name arg1 "this is arg2 but it contains whitespaces.")
Function arguments can contain other variables $(name $(variable) arg2)
Both variables and functions will be rendered async. For example: Get the value for $(variable) from db then replace it.
This is not for rendering an html page but to simply replace a string entered by a user on the backend.
Edit
More information:
Suppose a user enters the following string:
$(id $(lowercase John))
On the backend application must do:
Convert "John" to lowercase.
Get the id for "john" from db.
This is only a simple example to demonstrate how this should work.
Are there any libraries that can help me achieve this? If not, any idea how to implement this?
EDIT 2:
I tried using Mustache and I changed the delimiters to $(), however the function (section) tags do no satisfy the requirements. In Mustache, for functions I must do this: $(#name) $(variable) "this is arg2 but it contains whitespaces."$(/name) also it does not support async rendering.

If not, any idea how to implement this?
You should use an Abstract Syntax Tree, and write a compatible parser. While regex (as Pedro Lima stated) is good for simple templating, if you ever want to extend the parser, you'll need something a bit more robust.
As an example of an Abstract Syntax Tree parser, $(test1 $(test2) test3) lorem ipsum $(test4) would be turned into the following:
(Thanks to Mile Shang's Syntree for the tree generator.)
As for specifically how to write a parser, I think you can figure it out. Just iterate over the string and check for the template delimiter. Reading the source code for a templating library like Handlebars might help.

Here. This regex will identify the templates that can be replaced. Note that it only selects the innermost templates in nested templates.
/\$\((?<FirstTerm>\S+?)(?<OtherTerms>(?:\s+(?:\w+|".*?"))+)?\)/g
So just use a regex replace function with your templating logic recursively until there are no more matches. The inner templates will be replaced and you'll be left with the string with templates replaced.

Other answers on this post are correct, however, I want to share exactly how I managed to implement this:
Create a recursive match function. I used Steven Leviathan's article to implement this.
Create a render function and inside the function call the recursive match function to find and replace variable/function names with appropriate values.
Keep calling the render function recursively until all arguments inside a function have been replaced.

Open Oracle Apex URL with JavaScript when giving parameters

when i use javascript eval() to open apex url from js i have no problem when i use eval() like this
eval("f?p=&APP_ID.:7:&SESSION.");
but when i wanna pass parameters with eval() like this
eval("f?p=&APP_ID.:7:&`SESSION.:P7_ID:8461,P7_ALLOWCHANGE:1,P7_WFDEF_ID:69004.");`
i get this error: SyntaxError: expected expression, got ':'
then these parameters automatically added after generating url
javascript:apex.navigation.dialog('f?p=101:7:28809985622510:::::\u0026p_dialog_cs=_7P7TVFV5LTQPjeyg-bGqSKpcYM',{title:'Workflow State',height:'auto',width:'720',maxWidth:'960',modal:true,dialog:null},'t-Dialog-page--standard '+'',this);:P7_ID:8461,P7_ALLOWCHANGE:1,P7_WFDEF_ID:69004.;
what should i do?

The best way would to be to use apex_page.get_url
It is so much simpler to use than apex_util.prepare_url
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E59726_01/doc.50/e39149/apex_page.htm#AEAPI30190

I don't know about your eval call, but this APEX URL syntax is wrong:
f?p=&APP_ID.:7:&`SESSION.:P7_ID:8461,P7_ALLOWCHANGE:1,P7_WFDEF_ID:69004.
All the item names should be listed together, then all the values together - and after the correct number of colon separators:
f?p=&APP_ID.:7:&SESSION.::::P7_ID,P7_ALLOWCHANGE,P7_WFDEF_ID:8461,1,69004
I also removed the spurious back-tick character from before "SESSION".

Apart from what Tony Andrews covered, here are a few more issues with your URL:
1. it's APP_SESSION - not SESSION. Here's documentation on built in substitution strings.
2. Your items are not substituted properly. Read this documentation page more details on substitutions in APEX.
Here's documentation on understanding APEX URL syntax.
Secondly, here's what you would try. Create a hidden page item and use APEX_UTIL.PREPARE_URL function and generate valid url, assign to the item. And use that item as url in your javascript. I haven't tried this, but this would be a better approach, I think.
Also prepare url like this:
APEX_UTIL.PREPARE_URL('f?p=' || :APP_ID ||':7:' || :APP_SESSION || :::' ||:P7_ID: ',' || :P7_ALLOWCHANGE || ',' || :P7_WFDEF_ID || ':8461,1,69004')
Here's another great resource to understand apex url and how to pass variables:
http://dgielis.blogspot.in/2015/01/understanding-apex-url-passing.html

"Fixing" JSON coming out of MySQL

I'm fetching JSON code stored in MySQL and it has extra slashes, which I have to remove in order to parse it in JavaScript, after I print it on the page. Right now I'm doing the following:
$save = str_replace("\n", "<br>", $save); // Replace new line characters with <br>
$save = str_replace('\\"', '"', $save); // top-level JSON
$save = str_replace('\\\\"', '\"', $save); // HTML inside top level JSON
$save = str_replace('\\\\\\\\\\"', '\\\\\"', $save); // HTML inside second level JSON
Here is an example JSON code, as it comes out from MySQL:
{\"id\":2335,\"editor\":{\"selected_shape\":\"spot-7488\"},\"general\":{\"name\":\"HTML Test\",\"shortcode\":\"html-test\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":776},\"spots\":[{\"id\":\"spot-7488\",\"x\":9.9,\"y\":22.6,\"default_style\":{\"use_icon\":1},\"tooltip_content\":{\"content_type\":\"content-builder\",\"plain_text\":\"<p class=\\\"test\\\">Test</p>\",\"squares_json\":\"{\\\"containers\\\":[{\\\"id\\\":\\\"sq-container-293021\\\",\\\"settings\\\":{\\\"elements\\\":[{\\\"settings\\\":{\\\"name\\\":\\\"Paragraph\\\",\\\"iconClass\\\":\\\"fa fa-paragraph\\\"},\\\"options\\\":{\\\"text\\\":{\\\"text\\\":\\\"<p class=\\\\\\\"test\\\\\\\">Test</p>\\\"}}}]}}]}\"}}]}
And here is how it's supposed to look in order to get parsed correctly (using jsonlint.com to test):
{"id":2335,"editor":{"selected_shape":"spot-7488"},"general":{"name":"HTML Test","shortcode":"html-test","width":1280,"height":776},"spots":[{"id":"spot-7488","x":9.9,"y":22.6,"default_style":{"use_icon":1},"tooltip_content":{"content_type":"content-builder","plain_text":"<p class=\"test\">Test</p>","squares_json":"{\"containers\":[{\"id\":\"sq-container-293021\",\"settings\":{\"elements\":[{\"settings\":{\"name\":\"Paragraph\",\"iconClass\":\"fa fa-paragraph\"},\"options\":{\"text\":{\"text\":\"<p class=\\\"test\\\">Test</p>\"}}}]}}]}"}}]}
Please note that I have HTML code inside JSON, which is inside another JSON and this is where it gets a bit messy.
My question - is there a function or library for PHP (for JS will work too) which covers all those corner cases, because I'm sure someone will find a way to break the script.
Thanks!

The short answer, which is woefully inadequate, is for you to use stripslashes. The reason this answer is not adequate is that your JSON string might have been escaped or had addslashes called on it multiple times and you would have to call stripslashes precisely once for each time this had happened.
The proper solution is to find out where the slashes are being added and either a) avoid adding the slashes or b) understand why the slashes are there and respond accordingly. I strongly believe that the process that creates that broken JSON is where the problem lies.
Slashes are typically added in PHP in a few cases:
magic_quotes are turned on. This is an old PHP feature which has been removed. The basic idea is that PHP used to auto-escape quotes in incoming requests to let you just cram incoming strings into a db. Guess what? NOT SAFE.
add_slashes has been called. Why call this? Some folks use it as an incorrect means of escaping data before sticking stuff in a db. Others use it to keep HTML from breaking when echoing variables out (htmlspecialchars should probably be used instead). It can also come in handy in a variety of other meta situations when you are defining code in a string.
When escaping data input. The most common escaping function is mysqli_real_escape_string. It's very important to escape values before inserting them in a db to prevent sql injection and other exploits but you should never escape things twice.
So there's a possibility that your code is double-escaping things or that addslashes is getting called or something like magic_quotes is causing the problem, but I suspect it is another problem: some JS code might be supplying this JSON not as a proper JSON string, but one that has been escaped so to define a string within javascript.
If you take your example JSON string above, and slap some quotes around it:
var myJSON = "<put your string here>";
then SURPRISE your javascript is not broken and the var myJSON contains a string that is actually valid JSON and can be parsed into an a valid JSON object:
var myJSON = "{\"id\":2335,\"editor\":{\"selected_shape\":\"spot-7488\"},\"general\":{\"name\":\"HTML Test\",\"shortcode\":\"html-test\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":776},\"spots\":[{\"id\":\"spot-7488\",\"x\":9.9,\"y\":22.6,\"default_style\":{\"use_icon\":1},\"tooltip_content\":{\"content_type\":\"content-builder\",\"plain_text\":\"<p class=\\\"test\\\">Test</p>\",\"squares_json\":\"{\\\"containers\\\":[{\\\"id\\\":\\\"sq-container-293021\\\",\\\"settings\\\":{\\\"elements\\\":[{\\\"settings\\\":{\\\"name\\\":\\\"Paragraph\\\",\\\"iconClass\\\":\\\"fa fa-paragraph\\\"},\\\"options\\\":{\\\"text\\\":{\\\"text\\\":\\\"<p class=\\\\\\\"test\\\\\\\">Test</p>\\\"}}}]}}]}\"}}]}";
console.log(JSON.parse(myJSON)); // this is an actual object
The key here is to examine the point of entry where this JSON arrives in your system. I suspect some AJAX request has created some object and rather than sending valid JSON Of that object, it is sending instead an escaped string of a JSON object.
EDIT:
Here's a simple example of what happens when you have too many encodings. Try running this JS in your browser and observe the console output:
var myObj = {"key":"here is my value"};
console.log(myObj);
var myJSON = JSON.stringify(myObj);
console.log(myJSON);
var doubleEncoded = JSON.stringify(myJSON);
console.log(doubleEncoded);

remove double quotes from Json return data using Jquery

I use JQuery to get Json data, but the data it display has double quotes. It there a function to remove it?
$('div#ListingData').text(JSON.stringify(data.data.items[0].links[1].caption))
it returns:
"House"
How can I remove the double quote? Cheers.

Use replace:
var test = "\"House\"";
console.log(test);
console.log(test.replace(/\"/g, ""));
// "House"
// House
Note the g on the end means "global" (replace all).

For niche needs when you know your data like your example ... this works :
JSON.parse(this_is_double_quoted);
JSON.parse("House"); // for example

The stringfy method is not for parsing JSON, it's for turning an object into a JSON string.
The JSON is parsed by jQuery when you load it, you don't need to parse the data to use it. Just use the string in the data:
$('div#ListingData').text(data.data.items[0].links[1].caption);

Someone here suggested using eval() to remove the quotes from a string. Don't do that, that's just begging for code injection.
Another way to do this that I don't see listed here is using:
let message = JSON.stringify(your_json_here); // "Hello World"
console.log(JSON.parse(message)) // Hello World

I also had this question, but in my case I didn't want to use a regex, because my JSON value may contain quotation marks. Hopefully my answer will help others in the future.
I solved this issue by using a standard string slice to remove the first and last characters. This works for me, because I used JSON.stringify() on the textarea that produced it and as a result, I know that I'm always going to have the "s at each end of the string.
In this generalized example, response is the JSON object my AJAX returns, and key is the name of my JSON key.
response.key.slice(1, response.key.length-1)
I used it like this with a regex replace to preserve the line breaks and write the content of that key to a paragraph block in my HTML:
$('#description').html(studyData.description.slice(1, studyData.description.length-1).replace(/\\n/g, '<br/>'));
In this case, $('#description') is the paragraph tag I'm writing to. studyData is my JSON object, and description is my key with a multi-line value.

You can simple try String(); to remove the quotes.
Refer the first example here: https://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_string.asp
Thank me later.
PS: TO MODs: don't mistaken me for digging the dead old question. I faced this issue today and I came across this post while searching for the answer and I'm just posting the answer.

What you are doing is making a JSON string in your example. Either don't use the JSON.stringify() or if you ever do have JSON data coming back and you don't want quotations, Simply use JSON.parse() to remove quotations around JSON responses! Don't use regex, there's no need to.

I dont think there is a need to replace any quotes, this is a perfectly formed JSON string, you just need to convert JSON string into object.This article perfectly explains the situation : Link
Example :
success: function (data) {
// assuming that everything is correct and there is no exception being thrown
// output string {"d":"{"username":"hi","email":"hi#gmail.com","password":"123"}"}
// now we need to remove the double quotes (as it will create problem and
// if double quotes aren't removed then this JSON string is useless)
// The output string : {"d":"{"username":"hi","email":"hi#gmail.com","password":"123"}"}
// The required string : {"d":{username:"hi",email:"hi#gmail.com",password:"123"}"}
// For security reasons the d is added (indicating the return "data")
// so actually we need to convert data.d into series of objects
// Inbuilt function "JSON.Parse" will return streams of objects
// JSON String : "{"username":"hi","email":"hi#gmail.com","password":"123"}"
console.log(data); // output : Object {d="{"username":"hi","email":"hi#gmail.com","password":"123"}"}
console.log(data.d); // output : {"username":"hi","email":"hi#gmail.com","password":"123"} (accessing what's stored in "d")
console.log(data.d[0]); // output : { (just accessing the first element of array of "strings")
var content = JSON.parse(data.d); // output : Object {username:"hi",email:"hi#gmail.com",password:"123"}" (correct)
console.log(content.username); // output : hi
var _name = content.username;
alert(_name); // hi
}

I had similar situation in a Promise just solved doing a cast as (String)
export async function getUserIdByRole(userRole: string): Promise<string> {
const getRole = userData.users.find((element) => element.role === userRole);
return String (getRole?.id);
}

Javascript - Get query string from a string?

I'm trying to get the query string from a string (not the current URL).
For example, I have a URL 'www.google.com/?query=string', I'd like to be able to run a function on it and get '?query=string' back from it. How would I go about doing this?
Thanks

Well, you can use a quick regexp that gets you the part you need:
myString.match(/(\?.*)/)[1]
Example:
'www.google.com/?query=string'.match(/(\?.*)/)[1] // evaluates to '?query=string'

Window.location.search will evaluate to this.
http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/prop_loc_search.asp

There's a jQuery plugin for that.

If you're using jQuery, use this plugin: http://projects.allmarkedup.com/jquery_url_parser/
This one lets you operate on the document's url, or any URL string
Then you can do:
$.url.setUrl("www.google.com/?query=string").attr("query") // returns 'query=string'
Or also get a specific parameter:
$.url.setUrl("www.google.com/?query=string").param("query") // returns 'string'
But if you really just need the whole query string, a quick regex like Alsciende suggested is the way to go.