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Problems with passing & (ampersand) back to a webserver using AJAX

Posted on 2009-05-13

1 solution

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Last Modified: 2012-05-06

We have a d/e form in which a Company Name is being captured.

Often a company name contains a ampersand within it:
eg: Ivan & Sons

This value is being passed to the Webserver for processing there using AJAX.

Hence the POST Query string is being manually constructed using JavaScript and fired back to the WebServer.

It appears that AJAX uses the & character to delimit the NAME:VALUE pairs being sent back to the Web Server (APACHE 2.X) for processing.

The problem encountered is that the VALUE being sent back to the web server is being truncated at the & character.

eg: txtCompanyName:"Ivan & Sons"

What is available in the POST array will be Ivan (only).

This is very puzzling. How is this overcome ??

var addrLine1 = "J&K Apts., 2nd Flr" ;
var addrLine2 = "S.V road";
var addrLine3 = "Mumbai" ;
var cityId = "1";
var pincode = "400001"
 
objAjaxCompInsertReq.params = 'action=insertCompanyData&section=' + section + "&compId=" + compId +"&addrLine1=" + addrLine1 + "&addrLine2=" + addrLine2 + "&addrLine3=" + addrLine3 + "&cityId=" + cityId + "&pincode=" + pincode +'&SID=' + Math.random() ;
 
Notice the ampersand issue in addrLine1.
What is visible in the POST Array is just the alphabet J

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Question by:bayross

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3 Comments

LVL 12

Accepted Solution

by:geowrian

geowrian earned 300 total points

ID: 243721132009-05-13

You need to escape the values:

var addrLine1 = escape("J&K Apts., 2nd Flr") ;
var addrLine2 = escape("S.V road");
var addrLine3 = escape("Mumbai") ;
var cityId = escape("1");
var pincode = escape("400001");
 
objAjaxCompInsertReq.params = 'action=insertCompanyData&section=' + section + "&compId=" + compId +"&addrLine1=" + addrLine1 + "&addrLine2=" + addrLine2 + "&addrLine3=" + addrLine3 + "&cityId=" + cityId + "&pincode=" + pincode +'&SID=' + Math.random() ;

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Author Comment

by:bayross

ID: 243723302009-05-13

Hi Geowrian,

Thank you for your assistance. I'm obliged. The solution works just fine.

Regards,

Ivan Bayross

Author Closing Comment

by:bayross

ID: 315808662009-05-13

Thank you. I learned from this. I'm obliged.

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