See HTML 4.01 section 3.2.2 Attributes:

By default, SGML requires that all attribute values be delimited using either double quotation marks (ASCII decimal 34) or single quotation marks (ASCII decimal 39). Single quote marks can be included within the attribute value when the value is delimited by double quote marks, and vice versa. Authors may also use numeric character references to represent double quotes (") and single quotes ('). For double quotes authors can also use the character entity reference ".

You don't actually need to think about this though, a module such as HTML::Entities will convert strings to use HTML safe characters for you. As a rule of thumb, just run every bit of data through it before stuffing it into your template.

Turns out it wasn't perl related. Its just that I wasn't sure which category it fell into until I'd found a solution.:)

I just use single quotes to delimit the attribute. Thanks.

I just use single quotes to delimit the attribute.

... which works until someone has a single-quote in the value. Or both a single and double quote. Or an ampersand.

No, the proper thing here is to learn to escape properly. Other solutions have already been given in this thread. Pay attention to them.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

You need to encode your values with HTML-safe entities, thus the module HTML::Entities would do the trick:

use HTML::Entities;
my $item_name = q{BGUS2-108 O.D Tube:5/8" MF Solder Connection:1/2"};
my $encoded_item_name = encode_entities($item_name);
[download]

Does this help?

You wouldn't use decode_entities - the data submitted by the browser is not HTML encoded. The only encoding going on is likely to be URL encoding which CGI.pm / Apache::Request / etc deal with automatically.

Crap! Point taken. Thanks!

----Asim, known to some as Woodrow.

Not really a perl question this, you need to use the HTML entity '"'

/J\

Thank you, HTML::Entities is the sensible option.

I would assume that this module is used by pretty much most perl programmers who develop for the web, as it seems like a necessity in most web database applications.

Funny, my boss doesn't feel the same way, as after 6 years he has never used it. I find that quite concerning.

What was generating your page header, your output? The encoding of the page should be in the header, no matter what you're doing, perl, html, php, whatever.