why will changeIt("hello " world") choke javascript? (for a link)

I wonder why the following code will choke Javascript?

(so the first link works, but the second doesn't) Thanks.

<a href="#" onclick='changeIt("hello world"); return false;'>Click me</a>
<a href="#" onclick='changeIt("hello &quot; world"); return false;'>Click me</a>    
<div id="divContent"></div>  

  
<script>

function changeIt(title) {
	document.getElementById('divContent').innerHTML = title + " " + new Date();	
}

</script>

Code (markup):

 

on the other hand, this will work:

<a href="#" id="link1">Click me</a>
<a href="#" id="link2">Click me</a>    
<div id="divContent"></div>  

  
<script>

document.getElementById('link1').onclick = function() {
	changeIt("hello world"); return false;
}

document.getElementById('link2').onclick = function() {
	changeIt("hello &quot; world"); return false;
}

function changeIt(title) {
	document.getElementById('divContent').innerHTML = title + " " + new Date();	
}

</script>

Code (markup):

 

I think the problem is that the &quot; is not enclosed in <script> tags and is being converted by the browser's HTML parser before it hits Javascript.

The second example works because &quot; is inside the <script> tags

 

so it looks like

<a href="#" onclick='changeIt("hello &quot; world"); return false;'>Click me</a>

is the same as

<a href="#" onclick='changeIt("hello " world"); return false;'>Click me</a>

and for sure that will choke. i think someone told me that any value part of an attribute is first parsed as HTML. I just can't find where this is formally stated as a rule.

 

If you use Firebug and inspect the element that's exactly what you'll see. I'm afraid I don't know where you'd find this formally stated but it makes sense - the document has to be parsed first as HTML for the browser to know which bits are Javascript

 

really? does that mean

onclick=&#039;changeIt("hello &quot; world");&#039;

will also work? since &#039; is the single quote
but i think it won't work as i tried the &quot; version with single quote inside and it didn't work

onclick=&quot;changeIt('hello');&quot;

 

No that causes a different problem - the &quot breaks the HTML parser which is looking for a closing ' to the onclick attribute

 

i meant to type in & #039; for the single quote... but i think the forum program changed it to the single quote...

the real thing i was wondering is

<a href="#" onclick=&quot;alert(1);&quot;>Click me</a>

will work too? it seems like it will not work. is only the value part of the attribute being parsed as HTML? thanks.

 

why not just use " or ' and just pretty much escape it like \" or \' inside the function