Make json filter safe

Previously the built-in json filter had an issue that made it unsafe to
use in HTML data. When used in HTML attributes an attacker who is able
to supply an arbitrary string that should be JSON encoded could close
the containing HTML element e.g. with `"</div>"`, and write arbitrary
HTML code afterwards as long as they use apostrophes instead of
quotation marks. The programmer could make this use case safe by
explicitly escaping the JSON result: `{{data|json|escape}}`.

In a `<script>` context the json filter was not usable at all, because
in scripts HTML escaped entities are not parsed outside of XHTML
documents. Without using the safe filter an attacker could close the
current script using `"</script>"`.

This PR fixes the problem by always escaping less-than, greater-than,
ampersand, and apostrophe characters using their JSON unicode escape
sequence `\u00xx`. Unless the programmer explicitly uses the safe
filter, quotation marks are HTML encoded as `&quot`. In scripts the
programmer should use the safe filter, otherwise not.

2 files changed, 24 insertions, 17 deletions

diff --git a/askama_shared/src/filters/json.rs b/askama_shared/src/filters/json.rs
index c0df707..e94e50c 100644
--- a/askama_shared/src/filters/json.rs
+++ b/askama_shared/src/filters/json.rs
@@ -1,33 +1,40 @@
 use crate::error::{Error, Result};
-use askama_escape::{Escaper, MarkupDisplay};
+use askama_escape::JsonEscapeBuffer;
 use serde::Serialize;
+use serde_json::to_writer_pretty;
 
-/// Serialize to JSON (requires `serde_json` feature)
+/// Serialize to JSON (requires `json` feature)
 ///
-/// ## Errors
+/// The generated string does not contain ampersands `&`, chevrons `< >`, or apostrophes `'`.
+/// To use it in a `<script>` you can combine it with the safe filter:
 ///
-/// This will panic if `S`'s implementation of `Serialize` decides to fail,
-/// or if `T` contains a map with non-string keys.
-pub fn json<E: Escaper, S: Serialize>(e: E, s: S) -> Result<MarkupDisplay<E, String>> {
-    match serde_json::to_string_pretty(&s) {
-        Ok(s) => Ok(MarkupDisplay::new_safe(s, e)),
-        Err(e) => Err(Error::from(e)),
-    }
+/// ``` html
+/// <script>
+/// var data = {{data|json|safe}};
+/// </script>
+/// ```
+///
+/// To use it in HTML attributes, you can either use it in quotation marks `"{{data|json}}"` as is,
+/// or in apostrophes with the (optional) safe filter `'{{data|json|safe}}'`.
+/// In HTML texts the output of e.g. `<pre>{{data|json|safe}}</pre>` is safe, too.
+pub fn json<S: Serialize>(s: S) -> Result<String> {
+    let mut writer = JsonEscapeBuffer::new();
+    to_writer_pretty(&mut writer, &s).map_err(Error::from)?;
+    Ok(writer.finish())
 }
 
 #[cfg(test)]
 mod tests {
     use super::*;
-    use askama_escape::Html;
 
     #[test]
     fn test_json() {
-        assert_eq!(json(Html, true).unwrap().to_string(), "true");
-        assert_eq!(json(Html, "foo").unwrap().to_string(), r#""foo""#);
-        assert_eq!(json(Html, &true).unwrap().to_string(), "true");
-        assert_eq!(json(Html, &"foo").unwrap().to_string(), r#""foo""#);
+        assert_eq!(json(true).unwrap(), "true");
+        assert_eq!(json("foo").unwrap(), r#""foo""#);
+        assert_eq!(json(&true).unwrap(), "true");
+        assert_eq!(json(&"foo").unwrap(), r#""foo""#);
         assert_eq!(
-            json(Html, &vec!["foo", "bar"]).unwrap().to_string(),
+            json(&vec!["foo", "bar"]).unwrap(),
             r#"[
   "foo",
   "bar"
diff --git a/askama_shared/src/generator.rs b/askama_shared/src/generator.rs
index 6024436..ea22a83 100644
--- a/askama_shared/src/generator.rs
+++ b/askama_shared/src/generator.rs
@@ -1171,7 +1171,7 @@ impl<'a, S: std::hash::BuildHasher> Generator<'a, S> {
             return Err("the `yaml` filter requires the `serde-yaml` feature to be enabled".into());
         }
 
-        const FILTERS: [&str; 3] = ["safe", "json", "yaml"];
+        const FILTERS: [&str; 2] = ["safe", "yaml"];
         if FILTERS.contains(&name) {
             buf.write(&format!(
                 "::askama::filters::{}({}, ",