[[HowdoIuseURIswithparametersinXML-HowdoIuseURIswithparametersinXML]]
=== How do I use URIs with parameters in XML?

If you try and use one of the Camel link:../uris.adoc[URIs] in an
link:../xml-configuration.adoc[XML Configuration] using the URI query
parameter notation, such as:

[source,xml]
----
<route>
  <from uri="direct:start?paramA=1&paramB=2"/>
  <to uri="mock:result"/>
</route>
----

you might get errors such as...

----
Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The reference to entity "paramB" must end with the ';' delimiter.
  at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:236)
  at
----

This is because in XML you need to escape some special XML characters
like these:

[width="100%",cols="50%,50%",options="header",]
|==================================================
|Special Character |How to escape it in XML
a|`&`

a|`+&amp;+`

a|`<`

a|`+&lt;+`

a|`>`

a|`+&gt;+`

|==================================================

So if you write the following XML it should work...

[source,xml]
----
<route>
  <from uri="direct:start?paramA=1&amp;paramB=2"/>
  <to uri="mock:result"/>
</route>
----
