cgiDebug(3)

🎀 cgiDebug(3) 🎀

ok so bestie, welcome to the cgiDebug(3) page — yes the title says debug, but the actual function living here is cgiEscape, we love a plot twist, it's giving "the page and the function have different names and that's just how the library is" 💅. Anyway, it's part of the CGI Library and it's short, sweet, and honestly iconic.

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✨ NAME ✨

cgiEscape — HTML escape certain characters in a string 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSYS 🌸

(yes, it's spelled that way in the original, no I will not be fixing it, it's part of the vibe now 🙈)

#include <cgi.h>

char *cgiEscape (char *string);

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so here's the tea. cgiEscape returns a pointer to a sanitised string. What it does is take <, & and > and convert them into HTML entities, so that when the result gets displayed, there's zero danger of cross-site scripting happening in a browser. no cap, that's the whole point 🫶

After you're done with it, the result can be passed to free(3). So like, you own that memory now, bestie, be responsible with it.

The big rule: this routine is meant to be called before any user-provided strings get returned to the browser. Do that. Every time. Periodt. 👑

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⭐ RETURN VALUE ⭐

• cgiEscape() returns a pointer to the sanitised string ✨
• or NULL if something went wrong (in case of error) 😭

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

This CGI library was written by Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>. If you've got additions or improvements, please get in touch with him — he literally wants to hear from you 💌

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• free(3)

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fr fr, the whole function is basically "escape the scary characters before you hand anything to the browser." that's it. that's the slay. 🎀

and that's a wrap on the page, bestie!! this was the CGI Library manual, dated 6 April 2008 — thank you for reading, mwah 💖🧚✨