CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlstringbash
WillD
WillD

Reputation: 6552

echoing html in a bash string

I am complete bash newbie.

I want to use the bash >>operator to append some html to the end of a file. I would like to construct said HTML with three concatenated sections: an opening html tag, a variable defined by bash earlier, and a closing html tag.

Something like: 

echo <div id="myid"> $myBashVariable </div> >> file.html

I am not sure what syntax is needed to escape the various characters needed for the HTML markup... <,>,/,".

How can I make this work?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1881

Answers (3)

that other guy
that other guy

Reputation: 123570

Save yourself the trouble and use a here document:

#!/bin/sh
var="world"

cat >> file.html << EOF
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Hello $var</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="whatever">Hello $var, and welcome to my page.</div>
  </body>
</html>
EOF

Note that characters in $var will not be HTML escaped, so if var='<script>alert(1)</script>' you will get a JS popup.

Upvotes: 4

user2575725
user2575725

Reputation:

You need to escape with \

On windows,

echo "<div id=\"myid\">%myBashVariable%</div>" >> file.html

On Linux,

echo \<div\ id=\"myid\"\>$myBashVariable\</div\> >> file.html

Upvotes: 1

Nithin D J
Nithin D J

Reputation: 339

\ is the escape character that you have to add before the special characters to escape the special meaning of those.

Try this.

echo \<div id=\"myid\"\> $myBashVariable \</div\> >> file.html

Upvotes: 2

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