The worst code I ever wrote

encode.sh

# This was part of a larger bash script.
# I decided to use sed to replace a password in an XML file after prompting the person installing.
# Since it was XML I had to first use sed to encode for XML.
# Then, since I was using sed I had to encode for sed.
# There is some shell encoding there too because of the backticks.
# A lot of damn back slashes.

# encode for XML
#                                                 & => &amp;        < => &lt;        > => &gt;        " => &quot;         ' => &apos;
ENCODED_SQL_PASSWORD=`echo $SQL_PASSWORD | sed -e "s/&/\&amp;/g" -e "s/</\&lt;/g" -e "s/>/\&gt;/g" -e "s/\"/\&quot;/g" -e "s/'/\&apos;/g"`

# now encode for sed
#                                                         \ => \\                      " => \"                & => \&           / => \/
ENCODED_SQL_PASSWORD=`echo $ENCODED_SQL_PASSWORD | sed -e "s/\\\\\/\\\\\\\\\\\\\/g" -e "s/\"/\\\\\\\\\"/g" -e "s/&/\\\\\&/g" -e "s_/_\\\\\/_g"`

echo "Using $ENCODED_SQL_PASSWORD"
sed -i "s/{PutPasswordHere}/${ENCODED_SQL_PASSWORD}/g" $MY_XML_CONFIG