NSXMLParser problem with "&"(Ampersand) character - iphone

Question

My NSXMLParsing is not working because of "&" character.. my code s below .any help please ?
NSString *myRequestString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://abc.com/def/webservices/aa.php?family_id=%d",self.passFamilyId];
//NSLog(#"Requested Service = %#",myRequestString);
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:myRequestString]];
[request setHTTPMethod: #"POST" ];
NSData *downloadedData = [ NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:nil error:nil];
NSString *str = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:downloadedData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
//NSString *contentString = [str stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#"&" withString:#"&"];
NSData * data=[str dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
//NSLog (#"string is :%#" ,str);
NSXMLParser *xmlParser = [[NSXMLParser alloc] initWithData:data];
// Call the XMLParsers's initXMLParse method.
ClientDetailXmlParser *parser = (ClientDetailXmlParser*)[[ClientDetailXmlParser alloc] initXMLParser];
[xmlParser setDelegate:parser];
BOOL success = [xmlParser parse];
// Check for XML parsing.
if(success)
{
NSLog(#"No Errors in clientDetailXml.xml");
}
else
{
NSLog(#"Error Error Error in clientDetailXml.xml!!!");
}
[parser release];
parser = nil;
if (objClientAddUpdate != nil) {
[objClientAddUpdate createBubbleList];
}

Answer 1

Replace
NSString *str = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:downloadedData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
//NSString *contentString = [str stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#"&" withString:#"&"];
NSData * data=[str dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
With:
NSString *str = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:downloadedData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
NSString *contentString = [str stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#"&" withString:#"&"];
NSData * data=[contentString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

Answer 2

Very similar to sepehr-mahmoudian's answer, but instead of replace any & you should really just replace & characters that are unescaped, to do this you can use a regexp:
NSString *str = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:downloadedData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
//NSString *contentString = [str stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#"&" withString:#"&"];
NSData * data=[str dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
With:
NSString *str = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:downloadedData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
NSRange searchedRange = NSMakeRange(0, [str length]);
NSString *pattern = #"&(?!(#[0-9]{2,4}|[A-z]{2,6});)";
NSError *error = nil;
NSRegularExpression* regex = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:pattern options:0 error:&error];
str = [regex stringByReplacingMatchesInString:str options:0 range:searchedRange withTemplate:#"&"];
NSData *data = [str dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

Answer 3

Here's what worked for me:
NSString *response = [[NSString alloc]initWithData:dataResponse encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSString *newResponse = [response stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:#"&amp:" withString:#"AND"];
NSData *dataObj = [newResponse dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
If I replaced it with symbol '&', the response would be correct, but it would throw parsing error: 68. So I had to use 'and'.