Truncation of body message when using '&' character with MFMailComposeViewController and MFMessageComposeViewController

Question

I have an iPhone app that sends in app email (using MFMailComposeViewController) and SMS messages (using MFMessageComposeViewController).

It works fine sending both types of messages, but I have run into a strange issue when the last word of a message contains the '&' character. Everything including and after the '&' gets truncated when it is opened in the email/sms iPhone built in controls (the controllers I mention above). I will illustrate with a few examples.

• Sending a message with the text "Hello world" works fine.
• Sending a message with the text "Hello &world" will truncate the message to "Hello ".
• Sending a message with the text "Hello worl&d" will truncate the message to "Hello worl".
• Sending a message with the text "Hello &world&world" will truncate the message to "Hello &world".

The truncation issue only appears in the message body, not the subject (this point is obviously not applicable to sending SMS message).

I have checked with NSLog output that the message is indeed not truncated before it is sent to the message controllers. I have also tested displaying the message with UIAlertView, and the message is not truncated there either.

Is this a bug in iOS or am I just missing something obvious here?

I am developing with iOS SDK 4.3 and the issue has been duplicated on both iPhone3GS and iPad2 devices.

Answer 1

I have confirmed that this was a bug in iOS SDK 4.3. After updating to iOS 5 the problem has disappeared, so I suppose Apple fixed the bug.