# Special characters in the Alarm name

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/special-characters-in-the-alarm-name/44633>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [March 18, 2021, 1:59pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/special-characters-in-the-alarm-name/44633 "2021-03-18T13:59:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![aamjad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f05b48/32.png) [@aamjad](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/aamjad)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 1:59pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/special-characters-in-the-alarm-name/44633/1 "2021-03-18T13:59:40Z")

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Hi,

Wondering if there is any character other than “/” that can cause problem if being used in the start, end, or in between the text.

Thanks,

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chasondeshotel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/chasondeshotel/32/20032_2.png) [@chasondeshotel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/chasondeshotel)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/special-characters-in-the-alarm-name/44633/2 "2021-03-18T15:44:42Z")

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I don’t know about alarm name but I found a bug where ~~you couldn’t rename~~ the space doesn’t display on tag folders that start with a space in 8.0

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cdunn.home](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/45deac/32.png) [@cdunn.home](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/cdunn.home)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 1:02pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/special-characters-in-the-alarm-name/44633/3 "2025-05-21T13:02:07Z")

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I have found issues using "[", "]", and "."  
This has caused a lot of heartburn as I have to come behind other engineers who named them for ControlLogix tags [e.g. "FAULT[1].3"] If you try system.tag.readBlocking for the alarm label, you will retrieve only None and the error shows there was a "property separator" found in your alarm name.

```python
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<input>", line 6, in <module>
ValueError: Invalid path element '[PLR_Tags]PullerAlarms/FAULTS00-00/Alarms/FAULTS[0].0.Label': Token PROPERTY_SEPARATOR found after property name.
>>> 
[[null, Bad_NotFound("Path '[PLR_Tags]PullerAlarms/FAULTS00-00/Alarms/FAULTS[0]/_0.Label' not found."), Thu May 08 18:06:01 EDT 2025 (1746741961318)]]
>>> readPath
'[PLR_Tags]PullerAlarms/FAULTS00-00/Alarms/FAULTS[0]_0.Label'

```