Internal name encoding in SharePoint

Question

It's pretty well publicised knowledge that _x0020_ replaces spaces in SharePoint internal field names. When working with SharePoint web services this can be a bit of a nightmare until you write a replace rule when comparing field names.

I've just found myself another one of these "encoding exceptions" in a field called SSL2. Bizarrely the internal name ends out being _x0053_SL2. I've tried something like RRL2 which comes out as _x0052_. From this it appears that the number used in the encoding represents the ASCII value of that character. Space would likewise be _x0020_.

My question is twofold:

1. In this case, whats causing SharePoint to encode these characters.

2. Broadly, what sort of encoding is being done and is there a general step I can do to decode strings rather than replacing specific occurances which I've come across and know to be a problem.

Answer 1

Hi Dan

SharePoint XML encodes names because it want to be able to use the field names as attributes in XML.

You can use System.Xml.XmlConvert.EncodeName to encode your names

Answer 2

You should use System.Xml.XmlConvert.DecodeName