XML (special characters and more)

programming flash
1

I’ve been working on a flash app for my Sony PSP basically a key/scale/chord finder. I decided XML would be a good idea since it would allow the program to be updated easily once the core .as was done. I have run into some problems with 1)special characters (mainly “#”) and 2)a way to send “keyon” data for the XML. my first problem is that I don’t know how to let flash use the # in my value (i.e. line 10 where the scalid=“C#”) I can’t really use that value to test for anything because it causes errors in flash (so what can I do?). Problem 2 is how to take the chordkeys element and somehow split it up into seperate values so I can tell Flash what keys to turn on and off. TIA

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<scales>
    <Ionian modename="IONIAN">
        <scale scaleid="C" scalenotes="C , D , E , F , G , A , B , C">
            <chords>
                <chord chordname="Cmaj" chordkeys="C-E-G"/>
                <chord chordname="Dmin" chordkeys="D-F-A"/>
                <chord chordname="Emin" chordkeys="E-G-B"/>
            </chords>
        </scale>
      <scale scaleid="C#" notes="C# , Eb , F , F# , G# , Bb , C , C#"/>
      <scale scaleid="D" notes="D , E , F# , G , A , B , C# , D"/>
      <scale scaleid="Eb" notes="Eb , F , G , G# , Bb , C , D , Eb"/>
      <scale scaleid="E" notes="E , F# , G# , A , B , C# , Eb , E"/>
      <scale scaleid="F" notes="F , G , A , Bb , C , D , E , F"/>
      <scale scaleid="F#" notes="F# , G# , Bb , B , C# , Eb , F , F#"/>
      <scale scaleid="G" notes="G , A , B , C , D , E , F# , G"/>
      <scale scaleid="G#" notes="G# , Bb , C , C# , Eb , F , G , G#"/>
      <scale scaleid="A" notes="A , B , C# , D , E , F# , G# , A"/>
      <scale scaleid="Bb" notes="Bb , C , D , Eb , F , G , A , Bb"/>
      <scale scaleid="B" notes="B , C# , Eb , E , F# , G# , Bb , B"/>
   </Ionian>
</scales>