title: ampersand in text message - sms sending android
body: <p>So here's my problem.</p>
  
  <p>I have a Timer which is supposed to send a SMS every X seconds.
  And i want the text message to be the current GPS location of the user. 
  So, i want to send a kind of Google Maps URL, using the GPS coordinates i get, and adding some markers, maptype, size.... for the map.</p>
  
  <p>To do that, i need to use the character "&amp;" in the URL. In order to get something like that : 
  <a href="http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=40.714728,-73.998672&amp;zoom=12&amp;size=400x400&amp;maptype=roadmap" rel="nofollow">http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=40.714728,-73.998672&amp;zoom=12&amp;size=400x400&amp;maptype=roadmap</a></p>
  
  <p>(ie : <a href="https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/staticmaps/?csw=1#URL_Parameters" rel="nofollow">https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/staticmaps/?csw=1#URL_Parameters</a>)</p>
  
  <p>But, when i want to use this kind of URL, using "&amp;" in my text message of the SMS. The SMS is never sent. When i remove every part containing the "&amp;", it's working fine.</p>
  
  <p>I tried to use "&amp;amp ;" instead of "&amp;". Still doesn't work. </p>
  
  <p>Here's my SMS manager to send the SMS : </p>
  
  <pre><code>smsManager.sendTextMessage(INT, null, "Alert - RED AREA \n TIME :  " + current date + " \n  Lat: " + latitude + " \n Long: " + longitude + "Link Maps : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=" + latitude + "," + longitude +"&amp;amp;zoom=12&amp;amp;size=400x400&amp;amp;maptype=satellite", null, null);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The code above, doesn't send any messages.
  But this one does : </p>
  
  <pre><code>smsManager.sendTextMessage(INT, null, "Alert - RED AREA \n TIME :  " + current date + " \n  Lat: " + latitude + " \n Long: " + longitude + "Link Maps : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=" + latitude + "," + longitude, null, null);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any ideas ?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks !</p>