CURL: &not returns a special character

[randomguy1234]

So, basically, I'm trying to send a GET form through CURL.

Let's say my link is this:

$link = "www.example.com?&rand=&notFirstTime=false&transaction_id=$transactionid&house_type=HOUSE_HOUSE";
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $link);
$html = curl_exec($ch);

Now, this appeared to work fine, but after I ran a little debugging test, I found out that the "&not" in the link turns into a character, which messes up all the next variables following it, thus they are not sent. One way to dodge this would be to put it in the end, but sometimes things may not be that easy. Currently I'm going for that solution, but I'd like to find another solution for this, in case I have to have two "&not-s" in the link.

"echo curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL);" outputs:

www.example.com?&rand=?FirstTime=false&transaction_id=$transactionid&house_type=HOUSE_HOUSE

Now I tried replacing "&" with "&", which seemed to work, but later I found out, that then "$transactionid" will be bugged and not sent. I'm not aware how should I use htmlentities in this case, because I tried it and nothing changed.

 

//"?" being shown instead of the real character in the code I provided.

[lordshoa]

do you need to urlencode your post ?