replacing a input value

Question

Hi,

Is there a better way to replace a string as having & in the textarea breaks the script as it thinks its another & parameter?

function doRequest(){
var str = $('textarea#tr').val();
$.ajax({
   type: "POST",
   url: "index.php?sd=t",
   data: "txt="+str.replace(/&/g, "and"),
   success: function(){
        $("div").css('color','red');
        $("div").text('Saved');
        $("div").fadeTo(800,1);
        $("div").animate({backgroundColor:'#000000'}, 200);
        $("div").animate({backgroundColor:'#FFFF90'}, 400);
        stre = false;
   }
 });
}

Answer 1

data: { txt: $('textarea#tr').val() }

Answer 2

You can pass your data as an object and let jQuery serialize it, like this:

data: {txt: str},

Note this won't put the word "and", it'll escape it, leaving %26.

What actually happens under the covers is calling encodeURIComponent(), like this:

data: "txt="+encodeURIComponent(str),

I'd go with the first method, I'm just showing what is happening underneath for better understanding of how the encoding works.