Php automatically encoding & in WordPress

SOLVED

Wrapping each instance of the & character in the php with htmlspecialchars() fixed my problem by outputting & instead of & and allowed the next page to recognize each of the variables correctly!

/SOLVED/

I am currently working on a WordPress site and am trying to create some javascript in the php and then echo it onto the page. Part of this javascript opens a new window/tab using window.open() and a url I have generated in the php. However, when I echo the variable containing the url, the all the & characters are auto encoded as &.

Here is an example of what is happening:

...
?>
<script type="text/javascript">
var url = "&";
var url2 = "<?php echo "&"; ?>";
var url3 = <?php echo json_encode("&"); ?>;
var url4 = "<?php echo html_entity_decode("&"); ?>";
var url5 = "<?php echo html_entity_decode("&"); ?>";
</script>
<?php
...

Then the actual javascript that is shown when I inspect the element where the script is being inserted is

...
<script type="text/javascript">
    var url = "&";
    var url2 = "&";
    var url3 = "&";
    var url4 = "&";
    var url4 = "&";
</script>
...

I have tried urlencode()-ing all of the &’s out of the url, but then $_GET does not recognize them as url variables.

Is this just a WordPress thing, or is it a php thing? And, is there anything I can do to make the &’s show up as just &’s?!

EDIT

Since there seems to be some confusion on what I’m trying to do, let me explain further. I am creating a url using php, not javascript. I am then generating some javascript using php and then echoing that out onto the page. The above excerpt only shows the problem that I am actually facing. The actual cod segment looks something like this:

$header_element .= "<script type="text/javascript">n"
                . "function validateForm(form) {n"
                . "tvar isInvalid = false;n"
                . $str_all_validation
                . "tif (!isInvalid) {n"
                . "ttrunReport(form);n"
                . "t} else {n"
                . "talert('You must enter all report parameters.');n"
                . "t}n"
                . "}n"
                . "function runReport(form) {n"
                . "twindow.open('/?page_id=172&PageId=$str_page_id&ReportName=$str_report_name"
                . "$str_all_param, '_blank')n"
                . "}n"
                . "</script>";

The above outputs correctly aside from having all of the & characters output as &.