Mysterious escape characters explained

We received the following question from a customer earlier today.  The question was something that many people are curious about so we've posted both the question and the answer below.  

Q - Is there any way to keep a space from changing to "%20" or "#" from changing to "%23" in a file name that's being uploaded to MDO through web folders or in the Public Folder?

A - The short answer is "No", and there are other special characters as well.

 

Using web folders means each file has to have a web URL and web URLs cannot include certain characters because they are used in HTML itself. "#" is one. Also blanks are not allowed. When a file name includes one of these characters they get replaced with an "escape" character which will start with % and a 2-digit code (%23 = # %20 = blank).

 

This is a web/internet thing, not a My Docs Online thing. All you can do is avoid using them in file names.

 

Here is a complete list (many of them aren't allowed in filenames in any case):

 

Table of URL Escape Characters
Character	Escape Character	Character	Escape Character
Space	%20	#	%23
$	%24	%	%25
&	%26	@	%40
'	%60	/	%2F
:	%3A	;	%3B
<	%3C	=	%3D
>	%3E	?	%3F
[	%5B	\	%5C
]	%5D	^	%5E
{	%7B	|	%7C
}	%7D	~	%7E