"""
General functions for HTML manipulation.
"""


_escape_map = {ord('&'): '&amp;', ord('<'): '&lt;', ord('>'): '&gt;'}
_escape_map_full = {ord('&'): '&amp;', ord('<'): '&lt;', ord('>'): '&gt;',
                    ord('"'): '&quot;', ord('\''): '&#x27;'}

# NB: this is a candidate for a bytes/string polymorphic interface

def escape(s, quote=True):
    """
    Replace special characters "&", "<" and ">" to HTML-safe sequences.
    If the optional flag quote is true (the default), the quotation mark
    characters, both double quote (") and single quote (') characters are also
    translated.
    """
    import string
    if quote:
        return string.translate(s, _escape_map_full)
    return string.translate(s, _escape_map)
