Outgoing File Naming Rules in DocBoss

DocBoss enables you to customize outgoing documentation to meet whatever specific requirements your EPC customers desire. You can customize file name formats as part of this but we do have some guidelines to follow, which we’ll discuss below.

We’ll also offer two resources at the end of the article from both Amazon and Microsoft regarding object key naming and naming conventions.

Outgoing file name formats can be created using variables and text but all file names should follow a “safe” rule list.

Once files are uploaded to DocBoss, the media where these are stored have limitations to the allowed naming of files. There are two storage options (disk drive and S3 storage) and we use an intersection of both to be able to work with files without errors when files are submitted.

Safe characters:

Alphanumeric characters:

• 0-9
• a-z
• A-Z

Special characters:

• Exclamation point ( ! )
• Hyphen ( – )
• Underscore ( _ )
• Period ( . )
• Open parenthesis ( ( )
• Close parenthesis ( ) )
• Unicode characters whose UTF-8 encoding is at most 1,024 bytes long

Allowed, but not recommended:

• Ampersand ( & )
• Dollar ( $ )
• ‘At’ symbol ( @ )
• Equals ( = )
• Semicolon ( ; )
• Plus ( + )
• Space – Significant sequences of spaces might be lost in some uses (especially multiple spaces)
• Comma ( , )
• Tilde ( ~ )

These characters will be supported in outgoing file names starting December 2023, though they are not recommended.

Replaced with underscore ( _ ):

The following characters are replaced with an underscore ( _ ) in outgoing file names:

Restricted on windows

• Less Than’ symbol ( < )
• Greater Than’ symbol ( > )
• Colon ( : )
• Quotation marks ( “ )
• Forward slash ( / )
• Backslash ( )
• Vertical bar / pipe ( | )
• Question mark ( ? )
• Asterisk ( * )
• ASCII character ranges 00–1F hex (0–31 decimal) and 7F (127 decimal)

To avoid as a general rule

• Left curly brace ( { )
• Non-printable ASCII characters (128–255 decimal characters)
• Caret ( ^ )
• Right curly brace ( } )
• Percent character ( % )
• Grave accent / back tick ( ` )
• Right square bracket ( ] )
• Quotation marks ( “ )
• Left square bracket ( [ )
• Tilde ( ~ )
• ‘Pound’ character ( # )
• Vertical bar / pipe ( | )

The tilde character ( ~ ) will be supported in outgoing file names starting December 2023, though it is not recommended.

The following articles include more details about the rules followed when creating file names and problematic characters:

• Object key naming
• Naming Conventions