7 Islamic articles on: jQuery

Table of contents for the topic jQuery
  1. Using PUT to RESTfully upload an image to a server with jQuery AJAX and PHP
  2. A guide to adding Google Drive (and OneDrive) upload functionality to Froala
  3. A guide to using PHP to download OneDrive files selected by users in the OneDrive Picker
  4. A guide to using PHP to download Google Drive files selected by users in the Google Drive Picker
  5. How I solved “jQuery Ajax Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘type’ of undefined”
  6. Mashing two regular expressions together in JavaScript on the fly
  7. Using jQuery and JSON to recover from a failed TablePress save

Using PUT to RESTfully upload an image to a server with jQuery AJAX and PHP

When uploading a single image to a known location, for example a user uploading an image to use as their profile image, using a PUT request for the upload makes more sense than POST if you are trying to follow REST principles.

I couldn’t find a complete solution online, so the following is what I came up with. Due to the complexities of real life, the request also has to send the file name and mime type to the server with the image, which is not something a PUT request can do. For this reason the file name and mime type are attached to the request URL, in this way making use of GET parameters and the PUT body to send data. I cannot say if this will be considered an abuse of REST principles or a good use of them, but this is simpler than doing two requests, the first one to tell the server what to expect, perhaps a PUT request that fills out the expected image’s attributes, and the second one to send the actual binary data.

Below is an everyday event listener that fires when the user chooses a file in the file upload input:

$("input:file").change(function (){
sendImageToServer();
});

And here is sendImageToServer():

function sendImageToServer() {
if ($('input:file').val().length > 0) {
                var file = $('input:file')[0].files[0];

                $.ajax({
                    url: '/profiles/' + user.id
                    + '/image?filename=' + file.name
                    + '&mimetype=' + file.type,
                    type: 'PUT',
                    data: file,
                    contentType: false,
                    processData: false,
                    cache: false,
                    error: function (data) { /*alert(data);*/
                    },
                    success: function (response) {
                        // do stuff
                    }
                });
            }
        },
}

And below is the back-end code, which uses Silex. If you are not using Silex, you’d use a typical AJAX handler and use $_GET and fopen("php://input", "r") to get the needed data.

Here is the Silex route:

$app->put('/profiles/{user_id}/image', 'Controller\ProfileController::profileImage');

And here is the controller. It writes the PUT data to a temporary file, then moves it to a permanent place. There might be a more elegant way of doing this.

public class ProfileController {
	public function profileImage(Application $app, Request $request, $user_id) {
		// permission and validity checks

		if ($request->getMethod() == Request::METHOD_PUT) { // if this is a PUT request
			$temp_file = '/some/path/temp_profile_image' . $user_id;
			touch($temp_file); // create file
			$fp = fopen($temp_file, 'w'); // open file handler
			/* in a non-Silex environment, instead of using $request->getContent(), 
			   you'd probably use fopen("php://input", "r") */
			fwrite($fp, $request->getContent());

			$profile_images_dir = '/some/path/profile_images/';
			$file_type = $request->query->get('mimetype');
			if (!$file_type) {
				$file_type = Util::getMimeBasedOnExtension($request->query->get('filename'));
			}

			if ($file_type == 'image/png' || $file_type == 'image/jpg'
				|| $file_type == 'image/gif' || $file_type == 'image/jpeg'
			) {
				$filename = $user_id . '.jpg';
				$full_file_save_path = $dir . $filename;

				$image = new \SimpleImage();
				$image->load($temp_file);
				$image->save($full_file_save_path, 'image/jpg');
			}
			unlink($temp_file);

			return new JsonResponse(['Successfully updated.', 'success']);
		}
	}
}

A guide to adding Google Drive (and OneDrive) upload functionality to Froala

Froala is a great JavaScript editor until you try to extend its functionality. Its documentation is horrible and there is little extra functionality you can add without having to do a lot of reverse-engineering and reading of GitHub comments.

Below is a guide to my solution for adding a Google Drive button to the Froala editor.

Here is the custom black and white icon I use for Google Drive to match the style of the rest of the Froala icons. The icon is from a free icons website and doesn’t require attribution.

Setting Up the Froala Google Drive Plugin

Place the following code inside a file that is included on the page along with the rest of the plugins you use (such as the file upload plugin). You can call it froala_google_drive_plugin.js:

$.FroalaEditor.DefineIcon('googleDriveIcon', {
    SRC: '/some/path/google_drive_bw.png',
    ALT: 'Google Drive', template: 'image'
});


$.FroalaEditor.RegisterCommand('googleDriveUpload', {
    title: 'Insert File From Google Drive',
    icon: 'googleDriveIcon',
    focus: false,
    undo: false,
    refreshAfterCallback: false,
    callback: function () {
        util.saveFroalaUserPlace(); // will be covered down below
    }
});

The above code registers an icon, then registers a Froala button that uses the icon. The callback function does nothing besides storing the user’s place in the editor (or the user’s selection, if they have selected any text right before clicking the Google Drive icon), otherwise their place will be lost once we insert the file, and the file would end up at the bottom of the editor. The user’s place in the editor is saved as a Range object. This will be covered down below.

Getting the Google Drive icon to show up

On the page where you have the Froala editor, your Froala initialization code may look something like this:

var froala_buttons = ['bold', 'italic', ...];
var froala_options = {
...
toolbarButtons: froala_buttons
};

$('#froala_editor_container').froalaEditor(froala_options);

To get the Google Drive icon to show up, add its command name to the buttons array. The command name is whatever name you used as the first argument to the RegisterCommand() function above.

var froala_buttons = ['bold', 'italic', ... , 'googleDriveUpload', ...];

A new way to initialize Froala

Above, I showed the usual way of initializing Froala:

$('#froala_editor_container').froalaEditor(froala_options);

That will have to be changed to this:

$('#froala_editor_container').on('froalaEditor.initialized', function (e, editor) {
    util.initFroalaGoogleDriveUpload(editor);
}).froalaEditor(froala_options);

Here we attach an event listener to the Froala container that is called as soon as Froala is done initializing. The event listener calls a custom function util.initFroalaGoogleDriveUpload(editor) that will set up the Google Drive buttons functionality. We pass the function the editor object. This is the Froala object, giving us access to the editor and its options, which we will use for various purposes. By using the editor object, we are able to handle having multiple Froala editors on the same page without issue, being able to insert files and images into the correct editor.

The Google Drive initialization function

Below is the function that is called when Froala loads, it binds a bunch of functionality to the Google Drive button.

window.util = {
    initFroalaGoogleDriveUpload: function (editor) {
        // get the icon object from the editor using jQuery find()
        var icon_el = editor.$box.find('[id^=googleDrive]')[0];

        // add a class to the button, to use for styling
        $(icon_el).addClass('google-drive-icon');

        // get the URL to use to handle the upload, here we use the same URL
        // as the one used by the file upload plugin
        var upload_handler_url = editor.opts.fileUploadURL;

        // The function that is called right after a user selects a file in the Google Drive picker
        var pick_callback = function (file) {
            util.storeGoogleDriveFileOnServer(file, upload_handler_url, util.froalaAjaxCallback, editor); // covered down below
        };


        util.initGoogleDrivePicker(icon_el, pick_callback); // covered down below
    },
    ...
}

Handling the Google Client

Please see my blog post A guide to using PHP to download Google Drive files selected by users in the Google Drive Picker for an overview of how the Google Drive picker works. Here I will use the same methods with some changes.

Since the binding of the Google Drive icon to the Google library has to be done after the library has loaded, the library is included in this way:


function googleClientHasLoaded() {
    util.google_client_loaded = true;
}
//I  have added slashes to the HTML tags in the code snippets here
// as this article was appearing 
//broken due to the browser trying to interpret the code
<\script src="https://apis.google.com/js/client.js?onload=googleClientHasLoaded">

The util.initGoogleDrivePicker() function

This function is called once, soon after page load, to bind the Google Drive picker library to the Froala icon. It uses a timeout to detect if the Google library has loaded. If not, it waits 500 milliseconds and tries again.

The callback is the pick_callback() function that was defined in util.initFroalaGoogleDriveUpload() above. When a user selects a file in the Google Drive picker, the onSelect() function is called, which extracts information from the file object, creates a new object from it, and passes that object to pick_callback().

window.util = {
...,
google_client_loaded = false,

// I use the library at https://gist.github.com/Daniel15/5994054
// to interface with the Google Drive Picker.
initGoogleDrivePicker: function (button_el, callback) {
        if (!util.google_client_loaded) {
            setTimeout(function () {
                util.initGoogleDrivePicker(button_el, callback);
            }, 500);
            return;
        }
        var picker = new FilePicker({
            apiKey: api_key,
            clientId: client_id,
            buttonEl: button_el,
            onSelect: function (file) {
                    callback({
                        id: file.id,
                        name: file.title,
                        extension: file.fileExtension,
                        mime_type: file.mimeType,
                        access_token: gapi.auth.getToken().access_token,
                    });
            }
        });
    },

Storing the file on the server

As you remember, or perhaps don’t, the pick_callback() function is as below:

var pick_callback = function (file) {
    util.storeGoogleDriveFileOnServer(file, upload_handler_url, util.froalaAjaxCallback, editor); 
};

The util.storeGoogleDriveFileOnServer() function is as below. It sends the file’s information to the server, the server stores the file (see the blog post I linked above for the details of storing the file). The server echoes out the download URL of the file, the link that users can go to to download the file. That download url, along with the file object and the editor, are passed to the callback. The callback is util.froalaAjaxCallback(), mentioned above in the pick_callback() function and covered down below.

    storeGoogleDriveFileOnServer: function (file, handler_url, callback, editor) {
        var data = {
            file: file,
            command: 'store-google-drive-file',
        }

        $.ajax({
            url: handler_url,
            type: 'post',
            data: data,
            error: function (data) {
            },
            success: function (download_url) {
                    callback(file, download_url, editor);
            }
        });
    },

Inserting the image or link into Froala with util.froalaAjaxCallback()

At this point, the Google Drive file is stored on our local server and we have a link to it that users can go to download the file. Now we need to insert that link into the editor.

   ...,
    froalaAjaxCallback: function (file, path, editor) {
        // restore the user's place in the editor, covered down below
        util.restoreFroalaUserPlace();


        // if the user has selected some text in the editor, insert a link to the file
        // and make the selected text the link text
        if (editor.selection.text().length) {
            var link_text = editor.selection.text();
        }
        else {
            var link_text = file.name;
        }

        // if the file has an image extension in its link, insert the file as an image
        if (/[.](png|jpg|gif|jpeg|svg)/.test(path)) {
            // if user has selected text in the editor, preserve the text, otherwise it will be
            // overwritten by the image
            if (editor.selection.text().length) {
                editor.html.insert(editor.selection.text() + '<\img id="fr-inserted-file" class="fr-image" src="' + path + '" />');
            }
            else {
                editor.html.insert('<\img id="fr-inserted-file" class="fr-image" src="' + path + '" />');
            }
        }
        else { // if not an image, insert a link to the file
            editor.html.insert('<\a id="fr-inserted-file" class="fr-file" href="' + path + '">' + link_text + '');
        }

        // Get the file.
        var $file = editor.$el.find('#fr-inserted-file');

        $file.removeAttr('id');

        editor.undo.saveStep();
    },

On saving and restoring the user’s place in the editor

Below is the code used to save and restore a user’s place in the editor, and any text they may have selected, as the Google Drive picker will make them lose their place/selection. The getSelection() and restoreSelection() functions are from a StackOverflow answer.

window.util {
        ...,
        froala_user_place = false;
        saveFroalaUserPlace() {
            util.froala_user_place = util.getSelection();
        },

        restoreFroalaUserPlace() {
            util.restoreSelection(util.froala_user_place);
        },

        getSelection: function () {
            if (window.getSelection) {
                sel = window.getSelection();
                if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) {
                    return sel.getRangeAt(0);
                }
            } else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
                return document.selection.createRange();
            }
            return null;
        },

        restoreSelection: function (range) {
            if (range) {
                if (window.getSelection) {
                    sel = window.getSelection();
                    sel.removeAllRanges();
                    sel.addRange(range);
                } else if (document.selection && range.select) {
                    range.select();
                }
            }
        },
}

OneDrive

The above solution should be easy to extend to support OneDrive as well. See these two guides of mine if you need help with the OneDrive picker: How to get a demo of the OneDrive File Picker JavaScript SDK to work on a local development server, A guide to using PHP to download OneDrive files selected by users in the OneDrive Picker.

Conclusion

I think that’s it. Some of the code above is from memory, so it may not compile. I throw everything into the util object for demo purposes, in my actual setup things are separated out into different objects and files.

A guide to using PHP to download OneDrive files selected by users in the OneDrive Picker

In my previous blog post  I described how to get the OneDrive picker to work on a local development server. In this post I will describe the second piece of the puzzle, downloading the file to a local server using PHP after the user selects it:

First, below is the JavaScript/jQuery used to open the file picker:

$(function() {
    $('.onedrive-button').click(function() {
        openOneDrivePicker();
    });
});

function openOneDrivePicker() {
    var odOptions = {
        clientId: client_id,
        action: "download",
        advanced: {
            redirectUri: redirect_uri,
        },
        multiSelect: true,
        openInNewWindow: true,
        success: function (files) { /* success handler */
            var files_array = files.value;
            for(var i in files_array) {
                window.processOneDriveFile(files_array[i]);
            }
        },
        cancel: function () { /* cancel handler */
        },
        error: function (e) { /* error handler */
        }
    }
    OneDrive.open(odOptions);
}

The success method goes through the file or files selected and calls a function called processOneDriveFile() on each one of the file objects.

Below is the code to the processOneDriveFile() function, which submits the file to a PHP handler file called file_handler.php:

// this function automatically submits the file to the server as soon
// as the user picks a file from the OneDrive picker. You may
// instead want to store the files in a variable and only submit when
// the user clicks some "Submit" button somewhere in your app.
function processOneDriveFile(file) {
    var file_name = file.name;
    var file_size = file.size;
    var download_url = file['@microsoft.graph.downloadUrl'];

    var data = {
        file_name : file_name,
        file_size : file_size,
        download_url : download_url,
        command : 'handle-onedrive-file',
    };
    
    $.ajax({
        url: '/path/to/file_handler.php',
        type: 'post',
        data: data,
        error: function (data) {
            console.debug(data);
        },
        success: function (data) {
            // success message
        }
    });
}

And here is the code for file_handler.php:

// bootstrap code

$command = $_POST['command'];

if('handle-onedrive-file' === $command) {
 $file_name = $_POST['file_name'];
 $file_size = $_POST['file_size'];
 $download_url = $_POST['download_url'];

 $ch = curl_init($download_url);
 curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
 curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
 curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
 curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
 curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
 curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false);
 curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 20);

 $data = curl_exec($ch);
 $code = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
 $content_type = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_CONTENT_TYPE);
 $error = curl_errno($ch);
 curl_close($ch);
 
 // A file with the same name may exist, that must be handled.
 $file_save_path = '/some/path/' . $file_name;

 file_put_contents($file_save_path, $data);
 
 echo 'File successfully retrieved and stored!';
}

That’s all. Make sure that the curl PHP library is installed and enabled (it is not sufficient to have the Linux curl utility, the code above uses the PHP library for it).

A guide to using PHP to download Google Drive files selected by users in the Google Drive Picker

Let’s say you’ve managed to get the Google Drive JavaScript Picker API to work, and have also managed to coerce your users into logging into the Picker and selecting one of their files:

And you have verified that the onSelect function works properly:

function initGoogleDrivePicker() {
    var picker = new FilePicker({
        apiKey: api_key,
        clientId: client_id,
        buttonEl: document.getElementsByClassName('google-drive-button')[0],
        onSelect: function (file) {
            console.debug(file);
        }
    });
}

Where to go from here to send the file to the server and have it saved there?

First, we’ll create a function called processGoogleDriveFile(file), which will be added to the onSelect function of the picker:

function initGoogleDrivePicker() {
    var picker = new FilePicker({
        apiKey: api_key,
        clientId: client_id,
        buttonEl: document.getElementsByClassName('google-drive-button')[0],
        onSelect: function (file) {
            processGoogleDriveFile(file);
        }
    });
}

The function will be as follows. It will extract the file’s information, then use a jQuery AJAX request to send it to a PHP file called file_handler.php:

// this function automatically submits the file to the server as soon
// as the user picks a file from the Google Drive picker. You may
// instead want to store the files in a variable and only submit when
// the user clicks some "Submit" button somewhere in your app.
function processGoogleDriveFile(file) {
    var data = {
        file_id : file.id,
        file_name : file.title,
        extension: file.fileExtension,
        mime_type : file.mimeType,
        // the function below is provided by the library
        // from https://gist.github.com/Daniel15/5994054
        access_token : gapi.auth.getToken().access_token,
        command : 'handle-google-drive-file',
    };
    
    $.ajax({
        url: '/path/to/file_handler.php',
        type: 'post',
        data: data,
        error: function (data) {
            console.debug(data);
        },
        success: function (data) {
            // success message
        }
    });
}

On the back-end side, in file_handler.php, we have the following code:

// bootstrap code

$command = $_POST['command'];

if('handle-google-drive-file' === $command) {
    $file_id = $_POST['file_id'];
    $file_name = $_POST['file_name'];
    $extension = $_POST['extension'];
    $mime_type = $_POST['mime_type'];
    $access_token = $_POST['access_token'];
    
    // if this is a Google Docs file type (Google Docs, 
    // Spreadsheets, Presentations, etc.) we convert it
    // to a PDF using the export function of the API before saving it.
    // we could convert it to other file types that are also supported
    // by the API.
    if (stripos($mime_type, 'google')) {
        $getUrl = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files/' . $file_id .
        '/export?mimeType=application/pdf';
        $authHeader = 'Authorization: Bearer ' . $access_token;
        $file_name = $file_name . " (converted)";
        $extension = 'pdf';
        $file_mime_type = 'application/pdf';
    }
    else { // otherwise we download it the normal way
        $getUrl = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files/' . $file_id . 
        '?alt=media';
        $authHeader = 'Authorization: Bearer ' . $access_token;
    }

    $ch = curl_init($getUrl);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 20);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [$authHeader]);


    $data = curl_exec($ch);
    $code = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
    $error = curl_errno($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

    // 1. the file name could already have an extension in some cases,
    // that must be handled if needed.
    // 2. A file with the same name may exist, that must be handled.
    $file_save_path = '/some/path/' . $file_name . '.' . $extension;

    file_put_contents($file_save_path, $data);
    
    echo 'File successfully retrieved and stored!';
}

That’s all that is needed. Not all of Google’s proprietary MIME types can be converted to PDF. You must add a check to the onSelect or processGoogleDriveFile() JavaScript functions to check whether this is a MIME type you want to support. If it not, you can alert the user to choose another file.

Make sure that the curl PHP library is installed and enabled (it is not sufficient to have the Linux curl utility, the code above uses the PHP library for it).

How I solved “jQuery Ajax Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘type’ of undefined”

A solution for an error occurring during a jQuery $.ajax request.

I was using this common jQuery Ajax pattern on a page I am working:

    $(function () {
        $(document).on('click', '.create-domain .submit', function (e) {
            e.preventDefault();

            var data = {
                domain_description: $('.create-domain .domain-description-textarea')
        }

            $.ajax({
                type: 'post',
                url: '/process/something.php',
                data: data,
                error: function (data) {
                    console.debug(data);
                },
                success: function (response) {
                   //stuff
                }
            });
        });

But on clicking the submit element, I kept getting this cryptic error:

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'type' of undefined
    at r.handle (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:3)
    at e (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:4)
    at Gb (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:4)
    at Gb (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:4)
    at Gb (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:4)
    at Gb (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:4)
    at Function.n.param (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:4)
    at Function.ajax (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:4)
    at HTMLButtonElement. (something.php:575)
    at HTMLDocument.dispatch (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:3)
    at HTMLDocument.r.handle (jquery-2.2.4.min.js:3)

The problem was that in the data variable, I was including an HTML element (a textarea) inside the data variable, instead of including the textarea‘s content. Thus the corrected code is (notice the .val() at the end):

            var data = {
                domain_description: $('.create-domain .domain-description-textarea').val(),
        }

Hopefully this will help a few people, helping making the world economy more efficient by 1*10-12% (saving the world economy $107 USD over the next year).

Mashing two regular expressions together in JavaScript on the fly 

var pattern1 = /Aug/;
var pattern2 = /ust/;
var fullpattern = (new RegExp( (pattern1+'').replace(/^\/(.*)\/$/,'$1') + (pattern2+'').replace(/^\/(.*)\/$/,'$1') ));

Explanation:

  • pattern1+'' turns (“casts”) the regular expression object into a string.
  • .replace(/^\/(.*)\/$/,'$1') removes the beginning and ending slashes from the pattern
  • new RegExp() turns the resultant string into a regular expression object. There is no need to add back a regular expression delimiter (i.e. slashes usually) since the RegExp() function (“constructor”) adds the delimiter if it is lacking.
  • If you want the resultant expression to have a flag, for example i, you add it so: new RegExp(string,'i');
  • This code is quite unreadable and you might be doing yourself and others a kindness if you use a less clever method. To make it more readable, the technique can be wrapped in a function:
var rmash = function(reg1,reg2) {
var fullpattern = (new RegExp( (reg1+'').replace(/^\/(.*)\/$/,'$1') + (reg2+'').replace(/^\/(.*)\/$/,'$1') ));
return fullpattern;
};

var my_new_pattern = rmash(pattern1,pattern2);

Generalizing the mash function to handle an arbitrary number of regular expressions and flags is left as an exercise.

Using jQuery and JSON to recover from a failed TablePress save

I was happily working away on my 700+ row table in TablePress, saving occasionally. Server issues came up and I was prevented from saving for a few hours. Eventually the server was back up again and I wanted to save, but I ran into the dreaded Ajax save failure message.

Even using shift+save did not work, taking me to the silly and useless Are you sure? WordPress page.

Refreshing the page would have meant losing many hours of work. I tried various ideas but all failed. The most desperate idea was to use jQuery to get the values of all the table cells, put them into an array, copy the string of the array, refresh the page, use jQuery to feed the array back into the cells. I tried to do it in Firefox, using the built-in inspector and Firebug, only to be reminded of how much I dislike Firefox’s slow and clunky inspector tools (I was using Firefox since it performs better than Chrome on super-sized web apps like a massive TablePress table).

So I needed a way to move my work to Chrome, but how? I saved the TablePress page as an HTML document on my computer, then opened it in Chrome. Saving the editor as an HTML document causes the values of the input fields to be saved, thus when I opened it in Chrome all the values of the cells where there.

Next, I used a jQuery bookmark to load jQuery on the page in Chrome, then I ran the following two lines in the console:

my_array = [];
$('textarea').each(function(){ my_array.push($(this).val()); });

The above code loads the values of the textboxes into an array. The Chrome console doesn’t have a way of letting you copy an object or array’s source code so that you can paste it somewhere else, therefore we have to improvise. We know that the console will print out the value of any object, and if it is a string, it will plainly print the string.

In the above example, we place the word “hello” in the variable x, then on the next line simply write the name of the variable and press enter, causing chrome to give us the string “hello”. As seen below, if type the name of an array variable, Chrome enables us to browse the values inside the array. This is usually helpful, but not this time, since we need the array in format that can be copied.

What we need is to stringify the array somehow. In this case, the JavaScript JSON API comes to the rescue. We place the array my_array inside the my_string variable using the line below:

var my_string = JSON.stringify(my_array);

Afterwards, we type my_string into the console, causing Chrome to show the plaintext version of the array:

We then copy the entire text (making sure to skip the beginning and end quotes added by the stringify function, since we won’t be needing them), then open the TablePress backend on a new tab, loading the table we were working on. The table will lack the cells we had added but could not save. Now we populate this working backend with the data we copied. We open the console, re-enable jQuery using the bookmark, and use the following line to load the text into an array. We do not have a need to use the JSON API’s parse function, since the plaintext is already a valid array initialization.

Below we see the array my_array, ready to be populated with the string we copied:

Next, we use the line below to add the values of the array into the table:

$('textarea').each(function(){ $(this).val(my_array.shift());   });

All done! In the first .each function above, we used my_array.push() to add values to the end of the array. To keep the values in order, we now use my_array_.shift(), getting items from the beginning of the array and feeding them to the textareas from first to last.

In this way I managed to get my work back. Another solution I could have tried would have been to see if WordPress could be forced to accept the data that it was rejecting (it was rejecting it due to an expired session or something like that). But such a solution may have required a lot more work and possibly modifications to the WordPress core, which is always risky and not fun.