/*
 * Static String formatting and query routines.
 * Copyright (C) 2001-2005 Stephen Ostermiller
 * http://ostermiller.org/contact.pl?regarding=Java+Utilities
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * See COPYING.TXT for details.
 */

/**
 * Utilities for String formatting, manipulation, and queries.
 * More information about this class is available from <a target="_top" href=
 * "http://ostermiller.org/utils/StringHelper.html">ostermiller.org</a>.
 *
 * @author Stephen Ostermiller http://ostermiller.org/contact.pl?regarding=Java+Utilities
 * @since ostermillerutils 1.00.00
 */
public class StringHelper {

  /**
   * Replaces characters that may be confused by a HTML
   * parser with their equivalent character entity references.
   * 
   * Any data that will appear as text on a web page should
   * be be escaped.  This is especially important for data
   * that comes from untrusted sources such as Internet users.
   * A common mistake in CGI programming is to ask a user for
   * data and then put that data on a web page.  For example:<pre>
   * Server: What is your name?
   * User: &lt;b&gt;Joe&lt;b&gt;
   * Server: Hello <b>Joe</b>, Welcome</pre>
   * If the name is put on the page without checking that it doesn't
   * contain HTML code or without sanitizing that HTML code, the user
   * could reformat the page, insert scripts, and control the the
   * content on your web server.
   * 
   * This method will replace HTML characters such as &gt; with their
   * HTML entity reference (&amp;gt;) so that the html parser will
   * be sure to interpret them as plain text rather than HTML or script.
   * 
   * This method should be used for both data to be displayed in text
   * in the html document, and data put in form elements. For example:<br>
   * <code>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;<i>This in not a &amp;lt;tag&amp;gt;
   * in HTML</i>&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</code><br>
   * and<br>
   * <code>&lt;form&gt;&lt;input type="hidden" name="date" value="<i>This data could
   * be &amp;quot;malicious&amp;quot;</i>"&gt;&lt;/form&gt;</code><br>
   * In the second example, the form data would be properly be resubmitted
   * to your cgi script in the URLEncoded format:<br>
   * <code><i>This data could be %22malicious%22</i></code>
   *
   * @param s String to be escaped
   * @return escaped String
   * @throws NullPointerException if s is null.
   *
   * @since ostermillerutils 1.00.00
   */
  public static String escapeHTML(String s){
    int length = s.length();
    int newLength = length;
    boolean someCharacterEscaped = false;
    // first check for characters that might
    // be dangerous and calculate a length
    // of the string that has escapes.
    for (int i=0; i<length; i++){
      char c = s.charAt(i);
      int cint = 0xffff & c;
      if (cint < 32){
        switch(c){
          case '\r':
          case '\n':
          case '\t':
          case '\f':{
          } break;
          default: {
            newLength -= 1;
            someCharacterEscaped = true;
          }
        }
      } else {
        switch(c){
          case '\"':{
            newLength += 5;
            someCharacterEscaped = true;
          } break;
          case '&':
          case '\'':{
            newLength += 4;
            someCharacterEscaped = true;
          } break;
          case '<':
          case '>':{
            newLength += 3;
            someCharacterEscaped = true;
          } break;
        }
      }
    }
    if (!someCharacterEscaped){
      // nothing to escape in the string
      return s;
    }
    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(newLength);
    for (int i=0; i<length; i++){
      char c = s.charAt(i);
      int cint = 0xffff & c;
      if (cint < 32){
        switch(c){
          case '\r':
          case '\n':
          case '\t':
          case '\f':{
            sb.append(c);
          } break;
          default: {
            // Remove this character
          }
        }
      } else {
        switch(c){
          case '\"':{
            sb.append("&quot;");
          } break;
          case '\'':{
            sb.append("&#39;");
          } break;
          case '&':{
            sb.append("&amp;");
          } break;
          case '<':{
            sb.append("&lt;");
          } break;
          case '>':{
            sb.append("&gt;");
          } break;
          default: {
            sb.append(c);
          }
        }
      }
    }
    return sb.toString();
  }
}

HTML Special  characters escape

java, html

Java