Problems with encoding special characters in json+ld ("invalid escape sequence")

support
1

I am having some problems with escape sequences in my json+ld data. Example:

My json+ld is:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "Webpage",
  "name": "{{ .Title }}"
}
</script>

.Title contains the value “My & Company”. What it becomes is:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "Webpage",
  "name": "My \x26 Company"
}
</script>

Google validator says: There was an error parsing your JSON-LD. Bad escape sequence in string. See: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/

Any ideas? I think the template is just escaping it wrong. It should use HTML entities.

2

This seems odd, but a fix in your case would be to:

"name": "{{ .Title | safeJSS }}"
3

But when I test something similar, I get

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "Webpage",
  "name": "My \x26 Company"
}
</script>

Which is valid …

What OS (Windows?) and Hugo version are you using?

4

Mac OS X, v0.15

I mean, the problem is the “\x26”. Maybe Google’s validator is wrong if that is actually a legal character. safeJS doesn’t change the output for me at all btw.

5

I know … I saw that when I posted it I got the same … that is this forum with copy and paste code. I’m not seeing the x26, but 0026 which is valid.

6

Where are you seeing this? The forum did not change anything for me. What I entered is what I got.

7

Try this:

"name": {{ .Title | safeJS }}
8

I’m seeing something similar.

My description in the post front matter is as follows.

description: It's driving her wild!

My header.html template has this.

{{ if .IsPage }}
<script type="application/ld+json">
{ 
    "@context": "http://schema.org",
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "{{ .Title }}",
    "author": {
        "@type": "Person",
        "name": "http://profiles.google.com/{{ .Site.Params.gplus }}?rel=author"
    },
    "datePublished": "{{ .Date.Format "2006-01-02" }}",
    "description": "{{ .Description | safeJSS }}",
    "wordCount": {{ .WordCount }}
}
</script>
{{ end }}

And this is what is getting rendered. (notice the ` has been replaced by \\x27

"description": "It\\x27s driving her wild!"

Im on Windows 8 and Hugo 0.15.

I tried the fix suggested above i.e.

"description": "{{ .Description | safeJSS }}",

But that causes the following error.

ERROR: 2016/04/22 template: theme/partials/header.html:48: function “safeJSS” not defined
INFO: 2016/04/22 found taxonomies: map[string]string{“tag”:“tags”, “category”:“categories”}
ERROR: 2016/04/22 html/template: “theme/partials/header.html” is an incomplete template in theme/partials/header.html

9

Edited my previous post to correct a typo. It’s safeJS, not safeJSS. And take note of the quotation marks in my previous post. They’re important.

1 Like
10

It’s not wotking for me. Both safeJS (for the description) and safeURL (for the url) are not working.

My partial:

"description" : "{{ .Description | safeJS }}",
"url" : "{{ .Permalink | safeURL }}",

What I get

"description" : "There\x27s still a couple of interesting shows to premiere ",
"url" : "http:\/\/localhost:1313\/posts\/soon-on-tv-aug2016",

I have no idea what I’m doing wrong. I’m using Hugo v0.16 on windows.

SOLUTION:

Seems that the url is not a problem, the json-ld plyaground validates it as correct. For the description:

"description" : {{ printf "\"%s\"" .Description | safeJS }},

2 Likes
11

My previous suggestion should work. You shouldn’t need the printf. Pay close attention to the double-quotes.

"description": {{ .Description | safeJS }},
12

Your suggestion gives me this:

"description" : September is here, and there's a few interesting shows coming. Let's check them below, in order of interest!,

The text is ok, but of course, the google validador complains of the absence of quotes.

1 Like
13

@thiagomgd What if you wrap your double curlies in quotes? I’m using Hugo for JSON LD without issue.

14

If I do this:

"description" : "{{ .Description | safeJS }}",

I got \x27 instead of '

15

thank you for save my time!

16

I have exactly the same issue that @thiagomgd had: I use the current windows release (v0.55.6-A5D4C82D windows/amd64).

If I use:

"description": {{ range where .Site.RegularPages "Section" .Params.inits_folder}}{{ .Content | safeJS }}{{ end  }},

I get plain HTML, but without leading and ending quotes, which is not pure JSON.

And if I use quotes:

"description": "{{ range where .Site.RegularPages "Section" .Params.inits_folder}}{{ .Content | safeJS }}{{ end  }}",

the result is strangely escaped (\x27 instead of ').

The solutions with printf seem also not to work:

printf "\"" # prints exactly "\""
print "     # results in error
17

This worked great for me - I’m using https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool