var input;

// method 1
input = document.getElementById('address').value;
alert(input)

// method 2
eval('input = "'+document.getElementById('address').value+'"')
alert(input)

method 1 is working fine, but method 2 is not working when newline characters are inputted and it says "unterminated string literal".

I need to store values using eval anyway. So please help me.

var input;

// method 1
input = document.getElementById('address').value;
alert(input)

// method 2
eval('input = "'+document.getElementById('address').value+'"')
alert(input)

method 1 is working fine, but method 2 is not working when newline characters are inputted and it says "unterminated string literal".

I need to store values using eval anyway. So please help me.

• javascript
• eval
• escaping

Share Improve this question Follow asked Sep 30, 2010 at 11:38 A.N.M. Saiful IslamA.N.M. Saiful Islam 2,13877 gold badges2828 silver badges3535 bronze badges

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3 Answers 3

Sorted by: Reset to default 4

Use string.replace(/\r?\n/g, "\\n") to escape the newlines.

That's because you are actually evaluating code that looks like this, which is ofcourse wrong in javascript

​var test = "Lorem ipsum
    dolor sit amet"; ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Why do you need the eval? It looks not really necessary in this case. Maybe we can help you get around the eval?

Try:

   const address = document.getElementById('address').value
   eval('input = ' + JSON.stringify(String(address)))

String(address) will guarantee that the object is a string. JSON.stringify will return a double quoted string parsable with eval.