URL string encoding issue in Flex 3

I am pulling data from a mySQL source using a traditional httpService protocol, this time adding a specific filter value to the string. So it’s a string with multiple values encoded, and I am using the & symbol. This seemed like a straightforward proposition, and the test in the browser worked well. However, I had a very specific issue with URL encoding. The IDE was throwing a pretty descriptive error:

next character must be “;” terminating reference to entity “method”

The issue is that the MXML compiler hated the & symbol. I tried using the ascii symbol for ampersand, which is %26, but to no avail. the trick turned out to be grabbing the decimal value, and present it in HTML code. In this case that’s the ampersand – its #38; – and a handy little chart was very helpful – here at acsiitable.com

The service request worked perfectly!

mx:HTTPService id=”prodList”
url=”http://mysite.com/flexedOut/Products.php?filter=594&method=FindAll”
result=”myResultHandler(event)”

in case you can’t tell, the browser is rendering that ampersand perfectly so here it would be one space between characters: & # 38 ;