SharePoint Column Names: Internal name mappings for non alphabet.

May 7, 2008 at 7:12 PM (SharePoint)
Tags: column, fields, internal name, SharePoint

Whenever creating any column for list, SharePoint creates two names for it.

1. External name to display in views, forms
2. Internal name

Best example to understand internal name is “Created By” field which is having internal name “Author”.

You can change the display name as many times as you want, but can never change the internal name once column is created.

If you are creating field from code behind then you can assign internal name as per your choice, but when doing it thru web SharePoint gives you option to give display name, and creates internal name by itself. When internal name is defined, if you have any of the non alphabet, numeric character as part of name ,SharePoint converts them to special hex codes.

For e.g. trying to create field “Emp Name” gives internal name as “Emp_x0020_Name”

( I guess this may be seems to be part of some security settings, to avoid sql injection etc, since they are allowing characters like ‘(quote), =(equal to), “(double quote), ; (semi colon) etc. You can create column with name      ‘ or ‘1=1 which means lot in security)

After some trial and errors I was able to build the conversion table for future reference.

Character	Internal Hex Code
~	_x007e_
!	_x0021_
@	_x0040_
#	_x0023_
$	_x0024_
%	_x0025_
^	_x005e_
&	_x0026_
*	_x002a_
(	_x0028_
)	_x0029_
_	_
+	_x002b_
–	_x002d_
=	_x003d_
{	_x007b_
}	_x007d_
:	_x003a_
“	_x0022_
|	_x007c_
;	_x003b_
‘	_x0027_
\	_x005c_
<	_x003c_
>	_x003e_
?	_x003f_
,	_x002c_
.	_x002e_
/	_x002f_
`	_x0060_
	_x0020_

Do leave comment if you find this useful.