Encoding Symbol Constants

[RehanSaeed]

If I have a constant symbol that determines the assembly product in a .csproj and I enter an &, the ampersand needs to be XML encoded.

[mlorbetske]

How do you think would be the best way to do this? Automatic escaping that the engine just does transparently, with a special directive that indicates that replacements in a particular region should be escaped in a certain way (in the content files), an alternate value form (like how name changes behavior between file name, namespace and class) or a special indication in the config?

[RehanSaeed]

Not entirely sure. A default of being encoded by default might be good but with a way of turning that off and/or configuring it.

[mlorbetske]

Assuming that the value that needs to be encoded in the XML is encoded in the XML already, you can use name forms for this.

Ex.

{
  "symbols": {
    "x": {
      "type": "parameter",
      "dataType": "string",
      "replaces": "Test\"Value",
      "forms": [ "encode" ]
   },
  "forms": {
    "encode": {
      "identifier": "xmlEncode"
    }
  }
}

This will replace the literal Test"Value with the literal the user supplies and it will also replace the XML encoded form (Test"Value) with the XML encoded form of the user's value.

[seancpeters]

Note: The syntax for defining value forms in template.json has changed since this post. See #1524 for an updated example.