Passing data to JavaScript in Rails

gistfile1.rb

  # Returns escaped +text+ for use in a JavaScript script tag.
  # The string is marked html_safe to prevent characters such as
  # '&' and '<' from being converted to HTML entities, which must
  # not happen as script tag content is defined to be CDATA.
  #
  # Example:
  #   <script>alert('<%= html_safe_js('hello & bye') %>')</script>
  #
  # Do not use this function for JavaScript used in an attribute value
  # such as 'onclick'. In that case, use +escape_javascript+ instead:
  #   <p onclick="alert('<%= escape_javascript('hello & bye') %>')">
  #
  # For reference:
  # http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/notes.html#notes-specifying-data
  def html_safe_js(text)
    escape_javascript(text).html_safe
  end

Hmm, disregard that. The escape_javascript function apparently does more than the documentation claims :)