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ioswebkitgoogle-searchwkwebview

Can't do google search with "&" character on WKWebView

I have a WKWebView in my app that allows a user to search on Google.

Everything works fine but searches with "&" character. For instance, if I search for at&t, I will have the results of the search of at.

If I print the url of my web view in didCommitNavigation, I can see the right searched terms at&t

func webView(webView: WKWebView, didCommitNavigation navigation: WKNavigation!)
{
        print(webView.URL?.absoluteString)
}

returns

https://www.google.fr/search?hl=en&q=at&t=&gws_rd=cr,ssl&ei=8f-hV4iJGM-ba6qvh-gJ

We can see the q parameter : q=at&t whereas the result page is the same as the one for q=at.

Any ideas to solve that problem would be appreciated.

Solution

  • As this verifies, the & is not automatically escaped in the usual way, so you probably have to process your search string manually (wherever your user enters the terms, just replace the & when you get it from there):

    let searchterm = getTermFromWherever()
let actualterm = searchterm.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&", withString: "%26")

    This should work.