Javascript RegEx replacing & quot;

Question

I'm trying to fix the Drupal Panels module to fix this nasty problem , which makes the AJAX errorhandler completely unreadable. The error handler has the following:

// Replace all &lt; and &gt; by < and > error_text = error_text.replace("/&(lt|gt);/g", function (m, p) { return (p == "lt")? "<" : ">"; }); 

I tried two approaches:

Adding

 // Now replace all &quot with ' for readability, for goodness sakes, per // http://drupal.org/node/1124042 error_text = error_text.replace(/"/g, "'"); 

Change

 // Replace all &lt; and &gt; by < and > error_text = error_text.replace("/&(lt|gt|quot);/g", function (m, p) { return (p == "lt")? "<" : (p == "gt") ? ">" : "'"; }); 

But not one of them worked. Little help?

EDIT: When printed to the console (in FF4 or Chrome) HTML objects are not displayed. The resulting warning ("") is as follows:

 An error occurred at /home/panels/ajax/editor/select-content/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center. Error Description: [ { "command": "settings", "argument": { "basePath": "/home/", "admin_menu": { "margin_top": 1 }, "asu_webauth": { "callapp": >"home", quot;onLogoutURL": "http://physics-dev.asu.edu" } } }, { "command": "css_files", "argument": [ { "file": "/home/modules/node/node.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/modules/system/defaults.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/modules/system/system.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/modules/system/system-menus.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/modules/user/user.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/admin_menu/admin_menu.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/cck/theme/content-module.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/ctools/css/ctools.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/date/date.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/filefield/filefield.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/office_hours/office_hours.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/og/theme/og.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/panels/css/panels.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/views_slideshow/contrib/views_slideshow_singleframe/views_slideshow.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/views_slideshow/contrib/views_slideshow_thumbnailhover/views_slideshow.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/misc/farbtastic/farbtastic.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/calendar/calendar.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/cck/modules/fieldgroup/fieldgroup.css?E", "media": "all" }, { "file": "/home/sites/all/modules/views/css/views.css?E", "media": "all" } ] }, { "command": "scripts", "argument": [ "/home/misc/jquery.js", "/home/misc/drupal.js", "/home/sites/all/modules/admin_menu/admin_menu.js", "/home/sites/all/modules/og/og.js", "/home/sites/all/modules/panels/js/panels.js", "/home/sites/all/modules/views_slideshow/js/jquery.cycle.all.min.js", "/home/sites/all/modules/views_slideshow/contrib/views_slideshow_singleframe/views_slideshow.js", "/home/sites/all/modules/views_slideshow/contrib/views_slideshow_thumbnailhover/views_slideshow.js", "/home/sites/all/modules/asu_webauth/asu_webauth.js" ] }, { "command": "modal_display", "title": "Add content to Center", "output": "\x3cdiv class=\"panels-add-content-modal\"\x3e\x3cdiv class=\"panels-section-column panels-section-column-categories\"\x3e\x3cdiv class=\"inside\"\x3e\x3cdiv class=\"panels-categories-box\"\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/select-content/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/activity\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-category\" title=\"\"\x3eActivity\x3c/a\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/select-content/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/menus\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-category\" title=\"\"\x3eMenus\x3c/a\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/select-content/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/miscellaneous\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-category\" title=\"\"\x3eMiscellaneous\x3c/a\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/select-content/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/page-elements\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-category\" title=\"\"\x3ePage elements\x3c/a\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/select-content/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/view-panes\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-category\" title=\"\"\x3eView panes\x3c/a\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/select-content/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/views\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-category\" title=\"\"\x3eViews\x3c/a\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/select-content/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/widgets\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-category\" title=\"\"\x3eWidgets\x3c/a\x3e\x3c/div\x3e\x3cdiv class=\"content-type-button clear-block\"\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/add-pane/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/node/node\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-config\" title=\"Add a node from your site as content.\"\x3e\x3cimg src=\"/home/sites/all/modules/ctools/plugins/content_types/node/icon_node.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" /\x3e\x3c/a\x3e\x3cdiv\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/add-pane/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/node/node\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-config\" title=\"Add a node from your site as content.\"\x3eExisting node\x3c/a\x3e\x3c/div\x3e\x3c/div\x3e\x3cdiv class=\"content-type-button clear-block\"\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/add-pane/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/custom/custom\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-config\" title=\"Create a completely custom piece of HTML content.\"\x3e\x3cimg src=\"/home/sites/all/modules/ctools/images/no-icon.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" /\x3e\x3c/a\x3e\x3cdiv\x3e\x3ca href=\"/home/panels/ajax/editor/add-pane/panel_context%3Apage-faculty_page%3Apage_faculty_page_panel_context/center/custom/custom\" class=\"ctools-use-ajax panels-modal-add-config\" title=\"Create a completely custom piece of HTML content.\"\x3eNew custom content\x3c/a\x3e\x3c/div\x3e\x3c/div\x3e\x3c/div\x3e\x3c/div\x3e\x3cdiv class=\"panels-categories-description\"\x3eContent options are divided by category. Please select a category from the left to proceed.\x3c/div\x3e\x3c/div\x3e" } ] 

Answer 1

remove quotes around regex

  error_text = error_text.replace(/&(lt|gt|quot);/g, function (m, p) { return (p == "lt")? "<" : (p == "gt") ? ">" : "'"; }); 

demo http://jsfiddle.net/gaby/mfmkc/

Answer 2

 str.replace(/&(l|g|quo)t;/g, function(a,b){ return { l : '<', g : '>', quo : '"' }[b]; }) 

Answer 3

This should work:

 var str = '&lt;span&gt;&quot;error&quot;&lt;/span&gt;'; str.replace(/&(lt|gt|quot);/g, function(m, t) { switch (t) { case 'lt': return '<'; case 'gt': return '>'; case 'quot': return '\''; } }); 

It returns "<span>'error'</span>"

If this does not work, perhaps your source line contains < instead of < etc.