how to escape '&' in maven pom property values

Question

I need to set a URL via a maven property (to be replaced per profile). The problem is that this URL contains some & and maven doesn't like this (if URL contains &_program):

"The reference to entity "_program" must end with the ';' delimiter." error occurs in pom on this line.

So how to escape this character or how to escape a hole line that might contain some "special" characters. (What other characters are forbidden in property-values?)

score 53 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

53

I've not used maven but from the sounds of it, standard XML escaping would get the job done. In your case you can try using

& instead of &

What characters do I need to escape in XML documents?

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

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answered Jan 02 '12 at 14:28

mikey

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score 46 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 21 '16 at 20:47

46

You can escape one character or a whole line that might contain some "special" characters by surrounding property value with <![CDATA[ property value ]]>. For example for some URL it would look like:

<properties>
    <some.url><![CDATA[http://stackoverflow.com?param_1=1&param_2=2]]></some.url>
</properties>

edited Apr 21 '16 at 20:47

LAFK 4Monica_banAI_modStrike

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answered Feb 21 '14 at 13:54

Tomasz Szymulewski

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The approach didn't work for a maven password property. – Hryhorii Liashenko Jun 27 '19 at 13:43

how to escape '&' in maven pom property values

2 Answers2