Proper way to handle the ampersand character in JSON string send to REST web service
OK,
I am using the System.Runtime.Serialization and the DataContractJsonSerialization.
The problem is that in the request I send a value of a property with the & character. Say, AT&T, and I get a response with error: Invalid JSON Data.
I thought that the escaping would be done inside the library but now I see that the serialization is left untouched the ampersand & character.
Yes, for a JSON format this is valid. But it will be a problem to my POST request since I need to send this to a server that if contains an ampersand will response with error, hence here I am.
HttpUtility.HtmlEncode is in the System.Web library and so the way to go is using Uri.EscapeUriString. I did this to try, but anyway, and without it all requests are working fine, except an ampersand is in a value.
EDIT: HttpUtility class is ported to the Windows Phone SDK but the prefer way to encode a string should be still Uri.EscapeUriString.
First thought was to get hands dirty and start replacing the special character which would cause a problem in the server, but, I wonder, is there another solution I should do, that it would be efficient and 'proper'?
I should tell that I use
// Convert the string into a byte array.
byte[] postBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(data);
To convert the JSON to a byte[] and write to the Stream.
And,
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
As the WebRequest.ContentType.
So, am I messed up for a reason or something I miss?
Thank you.
Answer
The problem was that I was encoding the whole request string including the key.
I had a request data={JSON} and I was formatting it, but the {JSON} part should only be encoded.
string requestData = "data=" + Uri.EncodeDataString(json) // worked perfect!
Stupid hole to step into.