Character replacement in custom property names results in duplicates

[thoult]

I realise that this behaviour is defined in the help file, but it's still special.

In general, I try to stay away from 'special' characters in TDMS properties. I tend to use TDMS file mostly as a local cache of data before uploading to SQL, where property names and column names match. As a result, my custom TDMS property names are determined by my schema naming conventions.

However, I frequently use DIAdem for debugging and looking at raw data.

I've long known that, on opening a TDMS, DIAdem will convert 'special' characters in custom property names to underscores. What I hadn't realised is that when confronted with two distinct custom properties with similar names, it will convert to only a single property.

For example, I write two properties two a TDMS via LabVIEW:

A+_High_Voltage_(V)

A-_High_Voltage_(V)

On opening this TDMS in DIAdem, these are converted to:

A__High_Voltage__V_

A__High_Voltage__V_

DIAdem then sees this as a single property that's been overwritten, and will always return the most recently written property.

As I said, I understand that this is expected behaviour, but it can be as confusing as hell unless you're aware what's happening under the hood.

[Walter_Rick]

Good point. We will discuss this with R&D.

Greetings

Walter

[JeroenBK]

Hello Walter,

I see this is an old topic but I have the same issue!!!

Any idea on how to solve this!! I have both Diadem 2015 and 2017 installed and both have this issue.

Kind regards,

Jeroen

[Brad_Turpin]

Hi Jeroen,

As of DIAdem 2018, property names are still very restricted, and the (,+,-,) characters are still illegal for DIAdem and the DataFinder.  At present your options are to write property names with LabVIEW that will be valid in DIAdem, change the property names when loaded into DIAdem to look better (but still without the illegal characters), or just live with the double underscores.

Sorry,

Brad Turpin

DIAdem Product Support Engineer

National Instruments