AND(&) Symbol Messing Up Params

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);"/>

Code (markup):

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.');
 }
}
}

Code (markup):

 

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

 

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

 

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
}

Code (markup):

 

All is fine now?

Also, I recommend:

parameters = parameters.replace("&","%26");

Code (markup):

Do not use regex unless it is needed as it complicates things and takes longer to execute (not that the difference is noticeable here ).

 

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

 

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