struts and & -> &

<html:text name="text1" value="R&D departement">

should be:

<html:text name="text1" value="R&amp;D departement">

basically, keep the & encoded as much as you can...  

You can use a class like this to encode your strings for HTML:

public class HtmlEncoder
{
  private static final String[] htmlCode = new String[ 256 ] ;
  static
  {
    for( int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++ )
    {
      htmlCode[ i ] = "&#00" + i + ";" ;
    }

    for( int i = 10 ; i < 32 ; i++ )
    {
      htmlCode[ i ] = "&#0" + i + ";" ;
    }

    for( int i = 32 ; i < 128 ; i++ )
    {
      htmlCode[ i ] = String.valueOf( ( char )i ) ;
    }

    // Special characters
    htmlCode[ '\t' ] = "\t" ;
    htmlCode[ '\n' ] = "<br>\n" ;
    htmlCode[ '\r' ] = "" ;
    htmlCode[ '\"' ] = "&quot;" ; // double quote
    htmlCode[ '&' ] = "&amp;" ; // ampersand
    htmlCode[ '<' ] = "&lt;" ; // lower than
    htmlCode[ '>' ] = "&gt;" ; // greater than

    for( int i = 128 ; i < 256 ; i++ )
    {
      htmlCode[ i ] = "&#" + i + ";" ;
    }
  }

  public static String encode( String string )
  {
    string = string.trim() ;
    int n = string.length() ;
    char character ;
    StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer() ;
    // loop over all the characters of the String.
    for( int i = 0 ; i < n ; i++ )
    {
      character = string.charAt( i ) ;
      // the Htmlcode of these characters are added to a StringBuffer one by one
      if( character < 256 )
      {
        buffer.append( htmlCode[ character ] ) ;
      }
      else
      {
        // Improvement posted by Joachim Eyrich
        buffer.append( "&#" ).append( ( int )character ).append( ";" ) ;
      }
    }
    return buffer.toString().trim() ;
  }
}

so you'd call something like:

    alert( '<%= HtmlEncode.encode( "R&D department" ) %>' ) ;

basically the browser treats, &amp; as ampersand in HTML, it is part of the HTML and XML standards - all characters in HTML and XML can the represented in the form &xxxx; so you just have to be a bit careful about what form you put where.
in your code above :-
<html:text name="text1" value="R&D departement"> outputs
<input type="text" name="text1" value="R&amp;D department"/> the & is encoded by the struts tag. But when read by the browser the value is interpreted as 'R&D department' and the &amp; is converted by the HTML parser. So when you alert (alert(document.forms[0].text1.value)  )the value you get 'R&D department'.

in the other case when you alert("<nested:write property="text1" name="text1"/>") the & is converted by the struts tag but NOT converted back by the HTML parser as it is in a javascript string, so you see "R&amp;D department" in the alert window.
basically the struts tags are made to put HTML not javascript so print values to hidden form elements or into some HTML element (e.g. <div/>) but dont use them to print directly into javascript areas of you webpage.

you could also do this:-
alert("<nested:write property="text1" name="text1"/>".replace(/&amp;/g,"&"));
which does a string replacement on the HTML encoded &amp;

if that, how to avoid struts to encode parameter?

Struts doesn't encode it...

the browser does

there's nothing you can do to stop it

I disagree ....
you can test it put a property in a bean like this:-

private String  testEnc="\"&\"";
public String getTestEnc() {
            return testEnc;
      }
      /**
       * @param testEnc The testEnc to set.
       */
      public void setTestEnc(String testEnc) {
            this.testEnc = testEnc;
      }
}

and write it out in a JSP
<bean:write property="testEnc" name="userBean"/>
and i get
&quot;&amp;&quot;

if you have JSTL installed you can use
<c:out value="${userBean.testEnc}" escapeXml="false"/>

otherwise you have you do a javascript string replacement:-
var str="<nested:write property="text1" name="text1"/>";
alert(str.replace(/&amp;/g,"&"));

or just accept the fact that the values will be escaped, and use that class I posted...

is this what he/she wants to do though - isnt he/she asking why & are being encoded.

> isnt he/she asking why & are being encoded.

Well, in that case, the answer is "because & is an HTML control character, so it has to be encoded for the browser to handle it properly"

but it is by the struts tag

but struts is an HTML framework, so it encodes things that are sent to the browser

so my interpretation was that hes asking why it isn't decoded in a javascript alert tag - because it's in a javascript string not a HTML element.

Split TimYates & siliconeagle