[resolved] special characters in field names - CSV file using hyphen "-" header

[Si4]

Excuse the first time user question, but I have fallen at the first hurdle creating my first job.
The output CSV file needs specific header column names such as "first-name"; I cannot change this. When I define this in Talend it changes the field in the schema to "first_name" (underscore not hyphen) and i cannot seem to override or escape this.
Help.
Thanks
Si

[Anonymous]

Hi
Talend don't support the special characters like hyphen "-" in the column name.
Best regards
Shong

[Si4]

Thanks for the quick reply,
OK but then there must be a solution?
Lets say I put the header row in another file and then combine the output rows with that row to the output file - then I get the header coloumn names I want?
Cheers
Si

[Si4]

OK - Now I have tried using tUnite to combine the data with a file containing the header row (with illegal characters) and that works fine except no matter how I set the tUnite merge order it always comes out the wrong way.
Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
Cheers
Si

[Si4 · Accepted solution]

OK - searching further suggests that tUnite does not guarantee the field order on the output.
Change this to be a job for the header and a sub-job activated after the header job to append the data.
Sigh.
Si

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

Has this been solved yet? if not is there a workaround to inserting special characters into column names? my example:

"cost_centre_id" needs to be "cost-centre_id" but it is not letting me use it.

Please help.

Thanks,

John

[Sriram151515]

Hi All,

@Shicong Hong​ @si smith​ : Is there a solution identified for the above issue. Stuck with a requirement to use special characters in the column header eg: "attributes.name"

[SJeshwani1618330394]

Hi All,

Is there a workaround to inserting special characters into column names?

For example: location_latitude to location-latitude

[gjeremy1617088143]

Hi,you can create your file with a column name with non special characters,

then you read it with a tFileInputRaw as a unique String,

then you replace it ex : StringUtils.replace((your string),(the old column name),(the new one with special char))

finally you write it with tFileOutputRaw.

Send me Love and Kudos

[dramirez29]

What component do you use to replace?

tjava ?