String.Join return × instead of times?

Question

This is my code:

var signature_parameters = new SortedDictionary<string, string>()
{
    { "client_id", client_id },
    { "timestamp", timestamp },
};

var signature_base_string = string.Join("&", signature_parameters.Select(p => string.Format("{0}={1}", p.Key, p.Value)));
Response.Write(signature_base_string);

which prints client_id=2446782×tamp=1291723521

What is ×?

Please *don't* build urls with `string.Concat` if possible... There are plenty of classes that deal whit Url creation correctly like [ParseQueryString](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7238190/namevaluecollection-for-editing-query-strings/7238228#7238228) or maybe `Url.Action` (for MVC)... And maybe see if you can avoid manual creation of HTML with `.Write` .... — Alexei Levenkov, Feb 07 '14 at 09:20

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 07 '14 at 08:58

12

Your join is putting the text &times into the string which is being encoded into x because &times is a html named special character

edited Feb 07 '14 at 08:58

It'sNotALie.

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answered Feb 07 '14 at 08:53

owenrumney

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It's bit brute force, but I suppose you could use HttpUtility.HtmlDecode http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7c5fyk1k(v=vs.110).aspx – owenrumney Feb 07 '14 at 08:57
@markzzz You can try to refer to [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1877016/1180426), even though it's not standard-compliant and might fail if you have multibyte characters. – Patryk Ćwiek Feb 07 '14 at 08:57
@owen79 Wouldn't `HtmlEncode`ing the string work just as well? – user247702 Feb 07 '14 at 08:58

Jignesh Thakker · Answer 2 · 2014-02-07T11:12:40.383

try this,

var signature_base_string = string.Join("&amp;", signature_parameters.Select(p => string.Format("{0}={1}", p.Key, p.Value)));

Response.Write(signature_base_string);

Or you can use HttpUtility.HtmlEncode to convert string to HTML- encoded string.

var signature_base_string = string.Join("&", signature_parameters.Select(p => string.Format("{0}={1}", p.Key, p.Value)));
Response.Write(HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(signature_base_string));

String.Join return × instead of times?

2 Answers2