Colon in Ajax jQuery data

Colon in Ajax jQuery data


The code below uses jQuery to gather data from a form and sends it to a PHP script. I have noticed that if one of the variables (variable1,  variable2,  variable3)  contain the ":" (colon) character then this causes problems with the jQuery script and the PHP script won't get the correct input. Is this a known problem? How do I solve this? Are there more characters besides ":" that causes problems?

var variable1 = $('# variable1 ').val();
var variable2 = $('# variable2 ').val();
var variable3 = $('# variable3 ').val();

// post data with ajax
$.ajax({
   type: 'POST',
   url: 'save.settings.php',
   data: { variable1 variable1 variable2 variable2 variable3 variable3 },
   success: function(data) {
          ..............
   }
}