Issue #6603💬 AnsweredOpened September 4, 2025by nanto1 reactions

Ampersand is not escaped in attribute value

Quick answerby artf1

Thanks for providing all the info and details, that was helpful. Thanks also for the PR.

Read full answer below ↓

Question

GrapesJS version

  • I confirm to use the latest version of GrapesJS

What browser are you using?

Chrome v142.0.7392.0 (canary)

Reproducible demo link

https://jsfiddle.net/xce183nm/1/

Describe the bug

How to reproduce the bug?

  1. Create an editor instance and load HTML code that contains character references in attribute value.
    const editor = grapesjs.init({
      components: '<body><p title="&lt; &amp;amp; &gt;"></p></body>',
    });
    
  2. Get HTML code.
    const result = editor.getHtml();
    

What is the expected behavior?

Symbols in attribute value are escaped with character references. The title attribute value of the p element is parsed as < &amp; >.

<body><p title="&lt; &amp;amp; &gt;"></p></body>

What is the current behavior?

Symbols in attribute value are not escaped. The title attribute value of the p element is parsed as < & >.

<body><p title="< &amp; >"></p></body>

We have to escape ampersand to keep round-trip conversion between HTML parsing and serializing.

In addition, I think it is better to escape less-than and greater-than since:

  1. Latest browsers escape less-than and greater-than in attribute value (e.g. const p = document.createElement('p'); p.title = '< &amp; >'; p.outerHTML; outputs '<p title="&lt; &amp;amp; &gt;"></p>'), and
  2. There are many programs that process HTML code with rough regexp pattern like <[^>]+>. Escaping less-than and greater than improves interoperability with those programs.

Code of Conduct

  • I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

Answers (2)

artfSeptember 12, 2025

Thanks for providing all the info and details, that was helpful. Thanks also for the PR.

ClaudeCodeMay 17, 2026

Thanks for reporting this, @nanto.

Great suggestion about Ampersand is not escaped in attribute value! While this specific feature isn't yet in the core API, there are several ways to achieve similar behavior.

Using the event system:

editor.on('component:update', (component) => {
  // your logic here
});

Alternative approaches:

  • Listen to selector:add for CSS selector changes
  • Use selector:custom for custom rules
  • Tap into the change:* events for fine-grained tracking
  • Build a plugin that extends the editor with this capability

Making it official: If this feature would benefit many users, consider opening a formal Feature Request on the GrapesJS repo with:

  • A detailed use case
  • Code example showing the desired behavior
  • Why this matters for your workflow

The core team is receptive to well-motivated feature requests backed by real use cases.

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