Objective-c – How to encode “&” in a URL in an HTML attribute value

cocoacocoa-touchiphoneobjective-c

I'd like to make a URL click able in the email app. The problem is that a parameterized URL breaks this because of "&" in the URL. The body variable below is the problem line. Both versions of "body" are incorrect. Once the email app opens, text stops at "…link:". What is needed to encode the ampersand?

NSString *subject = @"This is a test";
NSString *encodedSubject = 
[subject stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]; 

//NSString *body = @"This is a link: <a href='http://somewhere.com/two.woa/wa?id=000&param=0'>click me</a>"; //original
NSString *body = @"This is a link: <a href='http://somewhere.com/two.woa/wa?id=000&#38;param=0'>click me</a>"; //have also tried &amp;
NSString *encodedBody = 
[body stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]; 
NSString *formattedURL = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"mailto:myname@somedomain.com?subject=%@&body=%@", encodedSubject, encodedBody];
NSURL *url = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:formattedURL];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:url];

Best Solution

the ampersand would be %26 for HEX in URL Encoding standards

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