PHP to ActionScript & problem

[fasterisbest]

Hello,

I just ran into a bit of a situation. I am driving a flash site with a database. All of the copy(text) in the .SWF comes from a database. I want to use & (ampersands) in my copy. Unfortunately, every time the AS sees an ampersand it thinks there is a new variable and everything breaks.

Can I set a different variable so the actionscript will still recognize variables coming from external sources? Something that may not be quite as popular? Perhaps a "^"?

Has anyone ever had this problem? Somebody has to have had this problem.

Thanks in advance.

Jimbo.

[laserlight]

Perhaps you need to escape the &, e.g., to use &?

[fasterisbest]

The PHP script outputs a series of variables for Flash. Every new variable is declared with the "&". For example:

&welcome=Welcome to the site.&goodbye=thanks and good night.

Above is what the PHP will pump out. Flash interprets it as 2 separate variable. However, consider this:

&welcome=Welcome to the site.&goodbye=thanks & good night.

The "thanks and good night" has changed to "thanks & good night". Now Flash thinks it is receiving another variable and everything gets broken. I know what you are thinking...don't use "&" and just use "and". Unforntunately, the client has an & in their name. I have to use it.

Can I change the variable declaration symbol (&) to something else? something that may not be as popular as a character?

[laserlight]

Oh, I see what you mean. I am not sure how Flash receives the query string, but my guess is that you should use [man]urlencode/man to escape, e.g., urlencode('Welcome to the site.&goodbye=thanks & good night.').

I know what you are thinking...don't use "&" and just use "and". Unforntunately, the client has an & in their name. I have to use it.

Too bad, you don't know what I am thinking :p