CakePHP: Escape single quotes within an implode function delimited with commas - php

Question

I have a routine in my controller that retrieves the values from a single database column and builds a quoted array out of them:
$suppliers=$this->Model->find('list',array('fields'=>array('Model.supplier', 'Model.supplier')));
$strSuppliers="'".implode("','", $suppliers)."'";
$this->set('suppliers', $strSuppliers);
$strSuppliers is then fed to a jQuery script that creates an auto-complete dropdown list in the "suppliers" field in my Edit view:
<script>
$(function() {
var availableTags = [<?php echo $suppliers ?>];
$( "#MsrSupplier" ).autocomplete({
source: availableTags
});
});
</script>
The output of the variable is something like 'Tom', 'Dick', 'Harry', etc.
This works fine, unless any of the retrieved values contain single quotes. 'Tom's', 'Dick', 'Harry' breaks the array, and I'm having difficulty understanding how to escape the single quotes so that my dropdown will continue to function when they're present. I've tried changing the delimiter and swapping single quotes for double quotes, like so:
$strSuppliers='"'.implode("','", $suppliers).'"';
But that didn't work. What else might I try here?

Answer 1

Check out json_encode() for PHP to output a JSON string, and then look at JSON.parse() for use in your jQuery.
Instead of using implode() to generate your string, use json_encode() and then have JSON.parse() decode that for use in whatever application you need.
Edit: Added some code for clarity:
$strSuppliers = json_encode($suppliers);
and then in your jQuery:
var jsonStr = '<?php echo $suppliers; ?>';
var availableTags = JSON.parse(jsonStr);
EDIT 2: As ndm pointed out in the comments, you can do this more cleanly by directly assigning the Javascript variable to the output of json_encode():
var availableTags = <?php echo $suppliers; ?>;