Knowledge Base

FP98: Cannot Validate Form Field if Name Has Invalid Character

Article ID: 194283

Article Last Modified on 10/3/2001


APPLIES TO


This article was previously published under Q194283

For a Microsoft FrontPage 2000 version of this article, see
205545.
For a Microsoft FrontPage 97 and earlier version of this article, see 184411.

SYMPTOMS

If the Name property of a form field contains an invalid character and you attempt to use form field validation on that field, you will the following message:
This control's name is not a valid identifier for scripting languages. Consequently, any script that FrontPage generates may not work properly. Before specifying validation criteria, please change the control's name so that it starts with a letter, and subsequent characters are letters (A-Z and a-z), digits (0-9), or underscores ("_").

NOTE: The letters must be ASCII; extended characters are not allowed.

CAUSE

The scripting language used by FrontPage does not recognize spaces or extended characters (such as /, \, *, &, @, and so forth) as valid characters for a form field name. Form field validation will not work if you use any of these characters in the Name property of a form field.

RESOLUTION

To remove the invalid characters or spaces from the form field names, follow these steps:
  1. Click the form field that you want to modify.
  2. On the Edit menu, click Form Field Properties.
  3. In the Name box, type a name that contains alphanumeric characters, such as A-Z, a-z, or 0-9 or the underscore character ("_"). The name must start with a letter.

MORE INFORMATION


Additional query words: 98 validate form field

Keywords: kbprb KB194283