JavaScript backslash (\) in variables is causing an error

The backslash (\) is an escape character in Javascript (along with a lot of other C-like languages). This means that when Javascript encounters a backslash, it tries to escape the following character. For instance, \n is a newline character (rather than a backslash followed by the letter n).

In order to output a literal backslash, you need to escape it. That means \\ will output a single backslash (and \\\\ will output two, and so on). The reason "aa ///\" doesn't work is because the backslash escapes the " (which will print a literal quote), and thus your string is not properly terminated. Similarly, "aa ///\\\" won't work, because the last backslash again escapes the quote.

Just remember, for each backslash you want to output, you need to give Javascript two.

You may want to try the following, which is more or less the standard way to escape user input:

function stringEscape(s) {
    return s ? s.replace(/\\/g,'\\\\').replace(/\n/g,'\\n').replace(/\t/g,'\\t').replace(/\v/g,'\\v').replace(/'/g,"\\'").replace(/"/g,'\\"').replace(/[\x00-\x1F\x80-\x9F]/g,hex) : s;
    function hex(c) { var v = '0'+c.charCodeAt(0).toString(16); return '\\x'+v.substr(v.length-2); }
}

This replaces all backslashes with an escaped backslash, and then proceeds to escape other non-printable characters to their escaped form. It also escapes single and double quotes, so you can use the output as a string constructor even in eval (which is a bad idea by itself, considering that you are using user input). But in any case, it should do the job you want.