Javascript code, unterminated string literal

Question

Error console: unterminated string literal

$html='<li><div class="above">'+$question_number+ 'Question Title</div>

The JQuery code is:

$html='<li><div class="above">'+$question_number+ 'Question Title</div>
<div class="middle"> <input type="text" name="question'+$question_number+ '" size="55"/></div>
<div class="below">'+$question_number+ ' <input type="text" name="option'+$question_number+ '" size="6"/>'+$question_number+ '<input type="text" name="option'+$question_number+ '" size="6"/>
   <input class="btn" type="button" name="Submit" value="Add" />
   <input class="btn" type="button" name="Submit" value="Remove" />
   </div>
</li>';

I know the value of $html is long, but how can I escape the trap of "unterminated string literal"? Is there a better to work around this problem?

Answer 1

Your lines need the continuation character if you're going to run the string literals over multiple lines. Put a "\\" character at the end of each line or use string concatenation. In other words, you could turn the incorrect:

$html='<li><div class="above">' + $question_number + 'Question Title</div>
<div class="middle"> ... ';

into:

$html='<li><div class="above">' + $question_number + 'Question Title</div>\
 <div class="middle"> ... ';

or:

$html='<li><div class="above">' + $question_number + 'Question Title</div>' +
    ' <div class="middle"> ... ';

You don't actually need your HTML to be nicely formatted but, if you really want it in a form that you can print nicely, you can put embedded newlines into it as well:

$html='<li><div class="above">' + $question_number + 'Question Title</div>\n' +
    '<div class="middle"> ... ';

For readability of the code, I would use something like:

$html = \
    '<li>' +
    '  <div class="above">' + $question_number + 'Question Title</div>' +
    '  <div class="middle">' +
    '    <input type="text" name="question' + $question_number+ '" size="55"/>' +
    '  </div>' +
    '  <div class="below">' + $question_number + 
    '    <input type="text" name="option' + $question_number +
    '      " size="6"/>' + $question_number +
    '    <input type="text" name="option' + $question_number + '" size="6"/>' +
    '    <input class="btn" type="button" name="Submit" value="Add" />' +
    '    <input class="btn" type="button" name="Submit" value="Remove" />' +
    '  </div>' +
    '</li>';

and then pass it through a compressor to get a much shorter version for distribution.

Answer 2

You could always just concatenate parts of it on multiple lines like:

$html='<li><div class="above">'+$question_number+ 'Question Title</div>';
$html+= '<div class="middle"> <input type="text" name="question'+$question_number;   
$html+=' size="55"/></div>';

etc.

Answer 3

You could use arrays to store fragments of your markup and then use the join method to get the complete markup:

a = new Array(20);
a[0]='<li><div class="above">'
a[1]= $question_number
a[2]= 'Question Title</div>'
a[3]= '<div class="middle">'
a[4]= '<input type="text" name="question'
a[5]= $question_number
a[6]= '" size="55"/></div>'
a[7]= '<div class="below">'
a[8]= $question_number
a[9]= '<input type="text" name="option'
a[10]=$question_number
a[11]= '" size="6"/>'
a[12]=$question_number
a[13]='<input type="text" name="option'
a[14]=$question_number
a[15]='" size="6"/>'
a[16]='<input class="btn" type="button" name="Submit" value="Add" />'
a[17]='<input class="btn" type="button" name="Submit" value="Remove" />'
a[18]='</div>'
a[19]='</li>'

$html = a.join('');