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Hi all, is there a quick fix for the issue of spaces in Excel files being replaced by _x0020_ in PowerApps? I've got a large Excel file with a lot of info (and therefore a lot of spaces). Thanks
Just an FYI, so in most Functions where a true column name is required (Searches, Sortby, Filters etc)
and you did not realize putting dashes or spaces in a name would cause you SO MUCH GRIEF LATER..
To a Name like XXX - RRRRR YYYY is not working with a function where the column name is
supposed to be in "" like "Title"
So to find the ACTUAL NAME that the list uses to ACCESS the DATA, you can bring up the
LIST in a Browser and then use F12 and search the code of a list for them.
The name choices in a list are important...
So when someone decides to use silly stuff like
"XXX - RRRRRR"
You have to then put in "XXX_x0020__x002d__x0020_RRRRRR" in order to use it as a SOLID PROGRAM COLUMN NAME.
So the x0020 is a space and the x002d is a Dash...
Moral of the story is to use UNDERSCORES for SPACES and don't use DASHES as its just bad practice, but
you like me may be working on a list you did not create. Happy Programming.
how do you this in the powerapps
This is poor design.
I agree the underlying data structure needs an escaped space, but the displayed labels should un-escape automatically.
I do not agree that "First rule of thumb in Ms Access, SharePoint Lists, and any table, Dont crete columns with spaces."
This may be good advice for IT consultants, but PowerApps is designed for business users.
Spaces will be used.
PowerApps needs to deal with it the same way Access, SharePoint Lists, and Tables do: Escape in the back-end, and automatically un-escape in the front end. There is no reason why a front end user should ever see an escaped sequence. You say that Excel does not offer an unescaped label. The unescaped label is in the Excel sheet. The Excel sheet is simply XML, and the header cell value is unescaped, and visible to the excel user. So I'm afraid it's not a valid excuse. PowerApps could certainly get the value, and it could certainly display it. It simply hasn't been thought about enough.
As others have mentioned, its not a bug.
First rule of thumb in Ms Access, SharePoint Lists, and any table, Dont crete columns with spaces. Even in website's addressbars you will see %20 to represent spaces, its the same thiing.
In SharePoint you first create a column with No spaces and that creates a clean clear readable Internal Column Name.
Then you can change the display name.
It helps a lot when someone else comes on the job and works on your project, they can easily read whata going on and it wont throw any weird un-troubleshoot-able errors.
Try to write like this:
ThisIsMyNewColumn (Internal Column Name (Shows in PowerApps etc))
This is my new column (Display Name of the above)
Its not a bug. As you point out, spaces are important in the PA language. For this reason if a column name (from Excel or any other data source) contains a space (or other "weird" character) it is replaced with an escaped version (0x20 in the case of spaces).
Some data sources offer both an internal name (which is used in the PA language) and a display name (which is shown in the UI eg as a column header in a data table). Excel does not do this.
Thanks for that. It does baffle me a bit, I would've thought a bug like that would be ironed out early in the development stage of Powerapps. Spaces are kind of important in the use of language!
Hi there,
As at my notice, i don't think that exists. In powerapps, every single space will have the _x0020_ in there. That's why, people advice to don't use spaces or any special character in that matter.
So no, there is no solution to that problem.
That's something people should avoid, spaces, special characters, and Numbers as first letter.
I hope i was helpfull. If you got a solution tho (That, again, i don't think it exists), feel free to share with us 🙂
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