biocore/empress

When setting text in the DOM, use textContent instead of innerHTML

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#216 opened on Jun 26, 2020

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good first issuerefactoring

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Description

See the MDN docs on some of the downsides of setting things with innerHTML here.

This shouldn't be a huge problem since Empress visualizations are (as of writing) inherently client-side applications, but there's the potential for users to break things if their data includes bizarre names -- for example, a metadata column is named <b>i'm a problematic metadata column</b>, or something silly like that. (Also, more realistically, backslashes or ampersands might also cause problems with innerHTML.)

Contributor guide

Research direction
Search for all uses of innerHTML in the codebase. For each occurrence where you are setting text, replace innerHTML with textContent to avoid security risks and ensure proper escaping.
Tech stack
javascript
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Security
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
1
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
Under 1 hour
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
JavaScriptDOM
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
90