🐛 fix formatting issue with dollar

frontend/lib/basic_chat.py

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 import streamlit as st
 
+from .utils import format_string
+
 
 def basic_chat():
     user_question = st.chat_input("Say something")
@@ -13,4 +15,4 @@ def basic_chat():
             response = chain.stream(user_question)
 
             with st.chat_message("assistant"):
-                st.write(response)
+                st.write(format_string(response))

frontend/lib/session_chat.py

@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
 
 from frontend.lib.backend_interface import query
 
+from .utils import format_string
+
 
 @dataclass
 class Message:
@@ -28,7 +30,7 @@ def session_chat():
     with st.container(border=True):
         for message in st.session_state.get("messages", []):
             with st.chat_message(message.sender):
-                st.write(message.content)
+                st.write(format_string(message.content))
 
         if user_question:
             if len(st.session_state.get("messages", [])) == 0:
@@ -54,7 +56,7 @@ def session_chat():
                 placeholder = st.empty()
                 for chunk in response:
                     full_response += chunk
-                    placeholder.write(full_response)
+                    placeholder.write(format_string(full_response))
 
             bot_message = Message("assistant", full_response, session_id)
             st.session_state["messages"].append(bot_message)

frontend/lib/utils.py

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+"""Utility functions for the frontend."""
+
+import re
+
+
+def protect_dollar(string: str) -> str:
+    r"""Escape unescaped dollar signs in a string.
+
+    This function takes a string and returns a new string where all dollar signs ($)
+    that are not preceded by a backslash (\) are escaped with an additional backslash.
+    This is useful for preparing strings that contain dollar signs for environments
+    where the dollar sign may be interpreted as a special character, such as in
+    Markdown.
+
+    Args:
+        string (str): The input string containing dollar signs to be escaped.
+
+    Returns:
+        str: A new string with unescaped dollar signs preceded by a backslash.
+    """
+    return re.sub(r"(?<!\\)\$", r"\$", string)
+
+
+def format_string(string: str) -> str:
+    """Format a string for safe Markdown usage.
+
+    Args:
+        string (str): The input string to be formatted.
+
+    Returns:
+        str: The formatted string.
+    """
+    string = protect_dollar(string)
+    return string