How to modify two-step shopping cart item containing an ampersand (&)

kim_purcell · ‎11-11-2015

If you create and name a catalog item with an ampersand on your two-step shopping cart page, say "B&B", add this item to your cart and proceed to checkout, you may find yourself staring at a blank page with this error: The entity name must immediately follow the '&' in the entity reference.

This will occur in your two-step shopping cart when:

a catalog item has a variable question that has an ampersand
a catalog item has a name that has an ampersand

In this case, "&" is not followed by "#" (for example   or   ) identified in HTML. So the XML parser is basically looking for any predefined or manual defined entity names (such as lt, gt, amp, quot and apos). You're just using "&" by itself and not as an XML entity, which explains why you're getting this XML parsing error. To fix this, you can to modify a couple of UI macros to escape HTML.

To fix a variable with a question that contains an ampersand:

1. Navigate to System UI > UI Macros.

2. In the UI Macro cart_variable_summary_v2, change:

${questionLabel}

to

${HTML:questionLabel}

OR

${JS:questionLabel}

Line 16 should look like this:

<td style="color:grey;">${HTML:questionLabel}$[SP]</td>

And change:

${displayValue}

to

${HTML:displayValue}

OR

${JS:displayValue}

Line 19 should look like this:

${HTML:displayValue}

To fix a catalog item with a name and short description that contains an ampersand:

1. Navigate to System UI > UI Macros.

2. In the UI Macro, sc_cart_view_column_expandable_desc, change:

${jvar_questionHelpTag}

to

${HTML:jvar_questionHelpTag}

OR

${JS:jvar_questionHelpTag}

Line 23 should then look like this:

<g:inline template="help_text.xml" question_show_help="true" question_help_tag="${HTML:jvar_questionHelpTag}" question_name="${jvar_cart_item.getID()}" help_class="${jvar_line_color}">

Here are releases where you may run into this problem: