View Problem

Retrieve a string containing ampersands from the variables in a url

My PHP script first does a query to obtain customer info for a form. The form has first name and last name fields among others. The customer has put entries such as "Ron & Jean" in the first name field in the database. Then the edit form script is called with variables such as

"http://myserver.com/custinfo/edit.php?mode=view&fname=Ron & Jean&lname=Smith".

The script variable for first name $_REQUEST['firstname'] never gets beyond the "Ron" value because of the ampersand in the data.

I have tried various functions like urldecode but all to no avail. I even tried encoding the url before the view screen is painted so that the url looks like "http://myserver/custinfo/edit.php?mode=view&fname="Ronxxnbsp;xxamp;xxnbsp;Jean"&lname=SMITH". (sorry I had to add the xx to replace the ampersand or it didn't display meaningful url contents the browser sees.)

Of course this fails for the same reasons. What is a better approach?
DiskEdit
ruby
gem 'uri-query_params'
require 'uri/query_params'

url = URI("http://myserver.com/custinfo/edit.php?mode=view&fname=Ron%20&%20Jean&lname=Smith")
url.query_params['fname']
# => "Ron & Jean"
DiskEdit
ruby
url = "http://myserver.com/custinfo/edit.php?mode=view&fname=Ron & Jean&lname=Smith"
url = URI.parse(URI.encode(url))
ExpandDiskEdit
cpp Qt 4.x
QUrl url("http://myserver.com/custinfo/edit.php");
url.addQueryItem("mode", "view");
url.addQueryItem("fname", "Ron & Jean");
url.addQueryItem("lname", "Smith");
QByteArray encodedUrl = url.toEncoded();
ExpandDiskEdit
fantom
encoded := `http://myserver.com/custinfo/edit.php`.plusQuery(
["fname":"Ron & Jean", "lname":"Smith"]).encode
echo(encoded)
DiskEdit
erlang
% encode ampersand in your string using %XX where XX is hex code for ampersand
% optionally encode spaces for completeness sake to keep URL solid
URL = "http://myserver.com/custinfo/edit.php?mode=view&fname=Ron%20%26%20Jean&lname=Smith",
{_, Query} = string:tokens(URL, "?"),
KeyValuePairs = string:tokens(Query, "&"),...

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