How to include an ampersand (&) in the content of a ComboBoxItem

Question

I currently have a Combobox like the following:

//XAML
<ComboBox>
<ComboBoxItem> Awake & Alive</ComboBoxItem>
</ComboBox>

This raises an error: Entity references or sequences beginning with an ampersand '&' must be terminated with a semicolon ';'.

I assume I am missing an escape sequence of some sort to allow me to use a &. How can I set the content of this comboboxitem to include a &? Thanks

Answer 1

Use & to encode the ampersand.

//XAML
<ComboBox>
<ComboBoxItem> Awake &amp; Alive</ComboBoxItem>
</ComboBox>

Answer 2

The short answer is to use & to encode an ampersand.

See also Entities: Handling Special Content on XML.com.

Answer 3

Alternatively, you can use the CDATA tag around the contents of the ComboBoxItem element; I think it better maintains the text's readability.

//XAML
<ComboBox>
<ComboBoxItem><![CDATA[Awake & Alive]]></ComboBoxItem>
</ComboBox>

For reference: http://www.w3schools.com/xmL/xml_cdata.asp