A function to fix escape sequences in lua strings. Useful for preparing JSON from an API for conversion.

escape-fix.lua

function escapeFix(data)
  local newData = ""
  for i=1,string.len(data) do
    local char = string.sub(data, i, i)
    local nextChar = string.sub(data, i+1, i+1)
    local prevChar = string.sub(data, i-1, i-1)
    if (char == '"' and (prevChar ~= "{" and nextChar ~= ":" and prevChar ~= ":" and nextChar ~= "," and prevChar ~= "," and nextChar ~= "}")) then
      newData = newData .. "\\" -- Append another, non-escaped, '\'
    end
    newData = newData .. string.sub(data, i, i)
  end
  newData = string.gsub(newData, "\n", "\\n") -- Strip out newlines as well
  return newData
end