esc_attr() │ WP 2.8.0

Escaping for HTML attributes. Converts <, >, &, ", ' characters to HTML entities. Does not make double escaping.

The function is intended to convert a raw string into a valid one for output in HTML attributes.

Uses: _wp_specialchars()

Used By: esc_attr__(), esc_attr_e()

1 time — 0.000001 sec (speed of light) | 50000 times — 0.17 sec (very fast) | PHP 7.2.5, WP 4.9.8

Hooks from the function

attribute_escape

Return

String. Escaped string for use in HTML attributes.

Usage

<?php echo esc_attr( $text ) ?>

$text(string) (required): Raw text for conversion.

Examples

#1 Example of usage

$text = "<span>(tag) '(quote) \"(double quote) &(ampersand)";
echo esc_attr( $text );

// returns:
// &lt;span&gt;(tag) &#039;(quote) &quot;(double quote) &amp;(ampersand)

#2 Example of double conversion

$text = "&gt; and &amp;";
echo esc_attr( $text );         // &gt; and &amp;
echo htmlspecialchars( $text ); // &amp;gt; and &amp;amp;

#3 Data cleaning on output

<?php $fname = ( isset( $_POST['fname'] ) ) ? $_POST['fname'] : ''; ?>
<input type="text" name="fname" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $fname ); ?>">

Changelog

Since 2.8.0

Introduced.

Code of `esc_attr() esc attr` ^{WP 5.9.3}

wp-includes/formatting.php

function esc_attr( $text ) {
	$safe_text = wp_check_invalid_utf8( $text );
	$safe_text = _wp_specialchars( $safe_text, ENT_QUOTES );
	/**
	 * Filters a string cleaned and escaped for output in an HTML attribute.
	 *
	 * Text passed to esc_attr() is stripped of invalid or special characters
	 * before output.
	 *
	 * @since 2.0.6
	 *
	 * @param string $safe_text The text after it has been escaped.
	 * @param string $text      The text prior to being escaped.
	 */
	return apply_filters( 'attribute_escape', $safe_text, $text );
}