Special characters in XML values

[bpavlov]

I did a GET on departments on the JSS and one of the departments has an "&" in it which is converted to "&" (without the double quotes) in the XML file. I want to eventually use that same value when I do a PUT into the JSS. However I wanted to know whether I should be replacing "&" with "&" or if I should leave it as "&" I would like to test this but I don't want to accidentally insert the wrong character into the JSS database using the API.

[mm2270]

It needs to stay as &amp; in my experience. XML will choke on characters that are normally used for the tags and some other items. > becomes &gt; , < becomes &lt; , & becomes &amp; and ' becomes &quot;

Also, don't worry about inserting the wrong character to the JSS. If your XML file has any of these characters not escaped in this way in the data strings, you won't be able to do a PUT command with it. It will present as a malformed XML and won't upload anyway.