AND(&) Symbol Messing Up Params

[cesarcesar]

I'm using the following AJAX code to send GET vars to my processing PHP file. This works great as is except that it will not accept a *&* (AND symbol) in the text input. It trys to pass what is after the *&* as a new GET var. I totaly get what is happening, just don't get how to fix it. I hope my example code is sufficient.

HTML:
<input type="text" class="inputbox" value="pb&j" id="input_name" name="input_name" onblur="javascript:makeRequest('my_file.php?new=',this.value);"/>


Javascript:
var http_request = false;
function makeRequest(url, parameters) { //alert(parameters)
http_request = false;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // Mozilla, Safari,...
http_request = new XMLHttpRequest();
if (http_request.overrideMimeType) {
// set type accordingly to anticipated content type
//http_request.overrideMimeType('text/xml');
http_request.overrideMimeType('text/html');
}
} else if (window.ActiveXObject) { // IE
try {
http_request = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
} catch (e) {
try {
http_request = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
} catch (e) {}
}
}
if (!http_request) {
alert('Cannot create XMLHTTP instance');
return false;
}
http_request.onreadystatechange = alertContents;

// FOR POST VARS
//http_request.open('POST', url, true);
//http_request.send(parameters);

// FOR GET VARS
http_request.open('GET', url + parameters + "&time=" + get_date(), true);
http_request.send(null);
}

function alertContents() {
if (http_request.readyState == 4) {
if (http_request.status == 200) {
//alert(http_request.responseText);
result = http_request.responseText;
document.getElementById('myspan').innerHTML = result;
} else {
alert('There was a problem with the request.');
}
}
}

[krt]

I thought JavaScript supported this natively with a string method but it doesn't. Try:
http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/61830.html

If you want a quick, fix, replace & with the encoded version, %26

[cesarcesar]

I see the code you have suggested, i just am a little unfamiliar with JS and not sure how to implement it.

[cesarcesar]

My solutions was to add the replace() function at line 2 of the following code.


function makeRequest(url, parameters) {
parameters = parameters.replace(/&/g,"%26");
http_request = false;

... rest of function
}

[krt]

All is fine now?

Also, I recommend: parameters = parameters.replace("&","%26");
Do not use regex unless it is needed as it complicates things and takes longer to execute (not that the difference is noticeable here :p).

[DavidMerrilees]

You should use the escape(string) and unescape(string) methods.

[krt]

There they are, I knew JS had this function somewhere. It also has encodeURI()