NAME Dancer::Plugin::EscapeHTML - Escape HTML entities to avoid XSS vulnerabilities SYNOPSIS This plugin provides convenience keywords `escape_html' and `unescape_html' which are simply quick shortcuts to `encode_entities' and `decode_entities' from HTML::Entities. use Dancer::Plugin::EscapeHTML; my $encoded = escape_html($some_html); It also provides optional automatic escaping of all HTML (see below.) DESCRIPTION This plugin is intended to provide a quick and simple way to ensure that HTML passed in the tokens hashref to the template is safely escaped (encoded), thereby helping to avoid XSS/cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. You can encode specific bits of data yourself using the `escape_html' and `unescape_html' keywords, or you can enable automatic escaping of all values passed to the template. KEYWORDS When the plugin is loaded, the following keywords are exported to your app: escape_html Encodes HTML entities; shortcut to `encode_entities' from HTML::Entities unescape_html Decodes HTML entities; shortcut to `decode_entities' from HTML::Entities Automatic HTML encoding If desired, you can also enable automatic HTML encoding of all params passed to templates. To do so, enable the automatic_encoding option in your app's config - for instance, add the following to your `config.yml': plugins: EscapeHTML: automatic_escaping: 1 Now, all values passed to the template will be automatically encoded, so you should be protected from potential XSS vulnerabilities. Of course, this has the drawback that you cannot provide pre-prepared HTML in template params to be used "as is". You can get round this by using the `exclude_pattern' option to provide a pattern to match token names which should be exempted from automatic escaping - for example: plugins: EscapeHTML: automatic_escaping: 1 exclude_pattern: '_html$' The above would exclude token names ending in `_html' from being escaped. By default, blessed objects being passed to the template will be left unmolested, as digging around in the internals of the object is probably not wise or desirable. However, if you do want this to be done, set the `traverse_objects' setting to a true value, and objects will be treated just like any other hashref/arrayref. SEE ALSO Dancer HTML::Entities AUTHOR David Precious, `' ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Tom Rathborne `' LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT Copyright 2011 David Precious. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License. See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.