URL in String resource xml

Question

I have stored a couple of urls in strings.xml file. I want to store them without encoding them (as raw text), but strings.xml throws error for = and &.

For example:

http://www.example.org/index.php?p=616687&ac=some_q

If I store the link as it is, it will throw the error:

The reference to entity "ac" must end with the ';' delimiter.

However, if I replace the & with %26:

http://www.example.org/index.php?p=616687%26ac=some_q

while this works without any error, this doesn't open the correct page in the browser.

Is there any way I can store the links in strings.xml as it is without formatting or uri encoding them?

Answer 1

You cannot use & directly, because XML document is expected to be well-formed and the problem is with & character itself. For XML/HTML you would have to use & entity (or &), but for URL use URL encoding and replace & it with %26 (as you did) which should simply work as browsers do understand such things as they simply have to.

Answer 2

You could Base64 encode and decode your URL Strings with http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/Base64.html