FME using "&" as the first character in a default published parameter?

Question

I need to use the "&" as the first character in my published parameter (a text parameter). It seems that using & as the first character makes an error in the parameter.

Any workarounds?

FME2015.1

Answer 1

It seems (in my testing) that it only happens the second time around - ie the first time you enter &aaaa (for example) it is OK. The second time you run the workspace the field is highlighted red.

But you can delete the contents and type &aaaa again and it is OK. At least, I can in my tests.

Basically it's parsing of the underlying mapping file interpreting this as an attribute value, since & always used to indicate an attribute name.

So you would always need to ensure that where you enter &aaaa, that aaaa is not also the name of an existing attribute.

The proper solution is to use a Multiline text parameter, instead of just text. That works better since it supports better encoding, the character is stored as <amp>, and it's recognized that this is not an attribute value.