Hello,

I have a web page that has a textarea defined on it like so:

<textarea id="myTextArea" rows="6" cols="75"></textarea>

There is a chance that a user may enter single and double quotes in this field. For instance, I have been testing with the following string:

Just testin' using single and double "quotes". I'm hoping the end of this task is comin'.

Additionally, the user may enter HTML code, which I would prefer to prevent. Regardless, I am passing the contents of this textarea onto web service. I must encode the contents of the textarea in JavaScript before I can send it on. Currently, I'm trying the following:

var contents $('<div/>').text($("#myTextArea).val()).html();
alert(contents);

I was expecting contents to display

Just testin' using single and double "quotes". I'm hoping the end of this task is comin'.

Instead, the original string is printed out. Beyond just double-and-single quotes, there are a variety of entities to consider. Because of this, I was assuming there would be a way to encode HTML before passing it on. Can someone please tell me how to do this?

Thank you,