2 way sms problem

2 way sms problem SearchSearch
Author Message
Bryn Chapman
Unregistered guest
Posted on Tuesday, September 28, 2004 - 09:09 am:   

How do you send an automated sms reply with a "&" in the message. When I use an "&" sign I get an error message saying "'B' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file". Is there any character that you can insert before the & symbol to show that it has a special meaning?
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 3466
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Tuesday, September 28, 2004 - 07:58 pm:   

Hi Bryn,

Can you give me some more details about how your command works?

My first suggestion would be to put "quote" characters around the text parameter that can include an & symbol.

Otherwise, the Windows command processor treats some characters like &, > and < specially.

For example ... at a command prompt window, type the following:

Echo This & That

You'll see that Windows displays:

This
'That' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.


However, if you instead issue the command:

Echo "This & That"

You will get the response that you expected ... however with quote characters.

Hmm...

I'm wondering if we need to do some special handling of this type of thing for command line programs?

I notice that you can escape the & symbol like this in a command:

Echo This ^& That

Can you give me some more details on your command?

Is the problem occuring when you receive a message that includes "&"?

If so, then I'd suggest modifying your 2-way command definition so that it includes quotes around the SMS text. Then have your program ignore the quotes (if it even sees them ... in many programming languages they are removed automatically).
Bryn Chapman
Unregistered guest
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 04:35 am:   

Hi Bryce

Thanks for the reply. The "^" before the "&" signs seems to work great. The only problem I have now is that when I try and display a "@" sign I get a triangle instead. The command I am echoing back is "c:\winnt\system32\cmd.exe /c echo R^&B Superclub hosts 5CENTs 'Get tighter with your posse' launch and giveaways @HEAT, Lvl 3, Crown Casino, Friday Oct 1. Free entry b4 11 if you mention 5CENT". Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Bryn Chapman
Bryn Chapman
Unregistered guest
Posted on Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - 03:52 am:   

Hi Bryce

Any ideas on the previous posting?

Thanks,
Bryn
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 3545
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - 05:07 pm:   

Hi Bryn,

Apologies for the delay.

I just tried the same command on my system, and I don't see any problem with the @ symbol.

How are you connecting to send the outbound SMS messages. Try sending an SMS from the web interface with a few @ characters, do you see the same experience there?

If you are using an SMPP connection, under "Advanced Settings", try setting the "SMSC Character Set" to be "iso-8859-1 (Latin)". In the GSM character set, "@" is encoded as a null character, and some SMS service providers don't realise this.

-bn