Geoserver: Problems with external graphic URLs

Question

In Geoserver, I try to save a SLD file containing this Rule:

<sld:Rule>
  <sld:PointSymbolizer>
    <sld:Graphic>
      <sld:ExternalGraphic>
        <sld:OnlineResource xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="https://my.url.net/services/pictureservice/wmg.pic?reference=jvb&id=1047068"/>
        <sld:Format>image/png</sld:Format>
      </sld:ExternalGraphic>
      <sld:Opacity>0.9</sld:Opacity>
      <sld:Size>14</sld:Size>
    </sld:Graphic>
  </sld:PointSymbolizer>
</sld:Rule>

The vaildator complains like this:

line -1: The reference to entity "id" must end with the ';' delimiter.

The problem seems to be the & in the url, which leads to the validation error. But unfortunatly, in the url i need both parameters, the reference and the id. Is there a way to get around this? I am on Geoserver 2.7.2

Answer 1

This is an XML file so you must use & instead of & in the URL so that the XML parser isn't confused by the & on it's own.