Naming Conventions

Monarch Classic allows long names for fields, templates, filters, sorts, summaries and summary columns.

Field naming conventions

Field names may be up to 62 characters in length and may contain uppercase and lowercase characters, spaces, and punctuation marks. However, periods (.), exclamation points (!), accent graves (`), and brackets ([ ]) may not appear in any part of the name. As well, names may not begin with spaces or underscores (_). If a name is entered with leading spaces, the name is accepted but the leading spaces are trimmed.

Note: If you elect to enforce DBF field naming rules, field names must adhere to the dBASE III field naming conventions. Names may be up to ten characters long and may contain any letter or number and the underscore character (_). The first character must be a letter. Spaces and punctuation are not allowed.

Template, filter, sort, and summary naming conventions

Template, filter, sort, and summary names may be up to 31 characters in length and may contain uppercase and lowercase characters, spaces, and punctuation. However, periods (.), exclamation points (!), accent graves (`), and brackets ([ ]) may not appear in any part of the name. As well, names may not begin with spaces. If a name is entered with leading spaces, the name is accepted but the leading spaces are trimmed.

Table naming conventions

For Excel files, Table Name corresponds to a Worksheet name or Named Range, and Named Ranges must begin with a letter or underscore, must not be ”C”/“c” or “R”/“r”, cannot contain spaces, and must not be the same as a cell reference, e.g., R1C1, A1, Z$100, etc., or any other Excel built-in names or objects in the workbook.

Table names assigned when exporting  data to a database file must adhere to the same naming conventions  as described  above under template, filter, sort, and summary names, except that MDB files allow names of up to 62 characters.