jQuery Grid Plugin - jqGrid

Hi,

My intent is to have a grid with dynamic number of columns and column header - read from a table depending on how many records the user enter.

All seems well except that the inline cell editing doesn't work if the Column Header has certain Characters eg: the phrase 'Function', or Special Chars like &, +, ^, ~.

The column headers shows the symbol correctly and the cells show the value correctly, .... just that when invoking the function afterSaveCell, the value portion becomes undefined.

Gist of my code is:
===========

  $("#gridmain").jqGrid('GridUnload'); 
  $("#gridmain").jqGrid('jqGridImport',
      { impurl:"getexamcolumnHOD.php?mode=list&level="+level+"&prev_sid="+prev_sid+"&year="+year+"&term="+term+"&class="+classid+"&tid="+tid,

     imptype: "xml",
     mtype: "POST",
     importComplete:function(){

         $("#gridmain").jqGrid('setGridParam',{afterSaveCell: function (rowid,celname,value,iRow,iCol){

             //if decimal value, to round up to next integer with a customised function - otherwise to show value  in uppercase as the value might be a grading.
              if (value.indexOf(".")>=0) // error shown here stating value is undefined when viewed using firebug
              {
                   value = roundNumber(value,1);
                   $("#gridmain").jqGrid('setCell',rowid,iCol,value,{});
              }else{
                   value=value.toUpperCase();
              }

             // and finally to save the edited value to table using ajax.

            ajaxCall("saveexammarkdbHOD.php", "id="+rowid+"&val="+value+"&fullmark="+st+"&scid="+scid+"&level="+level+"&prev_sid="+prev_sid+"&year="+year +"&term="+term+"&class="+classid+"&tid="+tid,"forAjax");

         }});

     }
    });

In getexamcolumnHOD.php, I code it to pull the neccessary cell values to display in the grid. I am having issue at:

<colNames>$descript</colNames>

Things are ok if $descript is a simple alphanumeric info. The column header display and the edited cell values get saved.

But when $descript contains &, ^, +, ~ and others special chars, the column header and the cell values are displayed correctly... but when the cell is being edited, the cell becomes blank and the grid hangs.

How to overcome having special chars in <colNames>? I need to at least allow the symbol &.

Thanks.