String Escape / Unescape — JSON · JS · Java · C · SQL · Shell · HTML · CSV · Regex

Real-world use cases

• Paste a multi-line log message into a JSON request body

  You are hand-building a curl request and need to drop a three-line error message into a JSON field. Pasting it raw breaks the JSON because of the newlines and the embedded double quotes. Select JSON, paste the log, copy the output — newlines become \n, quotes become \", and any stray control byte becomes \uXXXX. Drop the result between your own quotes in the request body and the API parses it on the first try instead of returning a 400 you have to debug.

• Build a one-off SQL literal for a data fix

  A support ticket needs you to update one row where the customer's name is O'Brien. Typing it straight into a console query closes the string early and throws a syntax error. Select SQL, paste O'Brien, copy O''Brien, and paste that between your quotes. For the one-off console fix this is exactly right — for anything that touches user input, the FAQ reminds you to switch to a parameterized query instead.

• Pass a filename with spaces and quotes safely to bash

  You scripted a command that operates on a path like /tmp/a b's file, and bash keeps splitting it on the space and choking on the apostrophe. Select Shell, paste the path, and the tool wraps it in single quotes and rewrites the apostrophe as the '\'' splice. Paste the result into your script and bash treats the whole thing as one literal argument, no word-splitting, no glob surprises.

• Read a stack trace someone escaped before sending it

  A teammate pasted a Java exception into Slack but their client escaped it, so it arrived as one line full of \n and \uXXXX. Switch to Unescape, pick Java, paste the blob, and read the real multi-line trace with the Unicode restored. Pair it with the unicode-character-inspector when a single glyph in the message looks suspicious.

• Quote a CSV cell that contains a comma

  You are assembling a CSV by hand and one cell is a full address with commas inside it. Dropping it in raw shifts every following column. Select CSV, paste the address, and the tool wraps it in double quotes and doubles any inner quote per RFC 4180, so the cell stays one field when the spreadsheet imports it.

Common pitfalls

• Escaping a JSON string twice. If you run already-escaped text through JSON escape again, every backslash doubles and \n becomes \\n — the parser then gives you a literal backslash-n instead of a newline. Escape once, at the moment you build the literal; if you are not sure, use Unescape first to get back to plain text, then escape.

• Treating SQL escaping as injection protection. Doubling single quotes makes a literal valid, it does not make untrusted input safe. Numeric contexts, identifiers and charset tricks slip past it. For anything touching user input, use parameterized queries — see the FAQ.

• Using backslash escaping for shell when single-quote wrapping is what you want. Backslash-escaping a string for bash is fragile across shells and breaks on glob characters and substitutions. The single-quote wrap this tool produces is literal end to end, which is almost always what you actually need.

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