Ampersand in cookie value

[richmlpdx]

I'm attempting to store a cookie that requires an unencoded ampersand in the value string. Is this possible?

$value = "junk=5&stuff=3";
setcookie("MY_COOKIE", $value);

I've tried htmlspecialchars(), etc. But when I view the cookie the value is always "junk=5%26stuff=3".

Thanks in advance!

[laserlight]

I think you'll have to store it in urlencoded form.

Still, you can always decode it for use, either by PHP's function, or by writing some simple code if you're using it externally.

[richmlpdx]

The problem is that the cookie is going to be read by perl, java, javascript and possibly other languages in the future. The code in say java needs an ampersand. Since there are thousands of lines of java, rewriting it to suit PHP is not really an option.

[stolzyboy]

certainly there are functions in those languages to get the value of %26 back to the ampersand

do it at the beginning of the java file, then you can always use search and replaces to repeat actions