# How to rename an index with a special char (tabulation) in its name?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-rename-an-index-with-a-special-char-tabulation-in-its-name/208085>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 15, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-rename-an-index-with-a-special-char-tabulation-in-its-name/208085 "2019-11-15T13:56:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tbarnier](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/tbarnier/32/57767_2.png) [@tbarnier](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tbarnier)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-rename-an-index-with-a-special-char-tabulation-in-its-name/208085/1 "2019-11-15T13:56:59Z")

</div>

A colleague created an index through an API

Name of the index: `LF_IDX_THE_INDX`

But - no idea how - with a leading `TAB` char in front

When running  
`GET _cat/indices?v`

the `LF_IDX_THE_INDX`shows a "whitespace" in the listing

```
health status index uuid pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size
green open .monitoring-kibana-6-2019.11.09 IPyXpkSmRMKlpTzuPIFe2g 1 1 8637 0 4.4mb 2.2mb
green open .kibana_1 pqpPwUYxR9GxuklEEIJ2SQ 1 1 232 3 650.6kb 325.3kb
green open .reporting-2019.01.13 6MUE5n9-TOGVXw_ZA0OHsw 1 1 4 0 29.8mb 14.9mb
green open .monitoring-kibana-6-2019.11.12 0yapl5Z0Rp6hUAbaIqsYXQ 1 1 8637                
green open LF_IDX_THE_INDX 81zbvGIIRKu36kszRtnE4Q 5 1 3248575 31489 86gb 43gb

```

But when running

`GET *LF_IDX_THE_INDX/_settings`

Shows

```auto
{
  "\tLF_IDX_THE_INDX" : {
    "settings" : {
      "index" : {
        "creation_date" : "1573809743739",
        "number_of_shards" : "5",
        "number_of_replicas" : "1",
        "uuid" : "WKBJDi-bTl2FWYi0IHATCg",
        "version" : {
          "created" : "6050499"
        },
        "provided_name" : "\tLF_IDX_THE_INDX"
      }
    }
  }
}

```

With a magnificient '\t' in the 'leader' position.

Is there a way to escape this shar to rename, create an alias or whatever?

Thanks in advance

Thierry

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rugenl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rugenl/32/12887_2.png) [@rugenl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rugenl)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-rename-an-index-with-a-special-char-tabulation-in-its-name/208085/2 "2019-11-15T14:54:54Z")

</div>

I didn't think indices could even have upper case characters in the names, strange.

Maybe you can use the url encoding for tab, like:

```
POST /_aliases
{
    "actions" : [
        { "add" : { "index" : "%09LF_IDX_THE_INDX", "alias" : "alias1" } }
    ]
}
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-rename-an-index-with-a-special-char-tabulation-in-its-name/208085/3 "2019-12-13T14:54:57Z")

</div>

Closed on December 13, 2019, 2:54pm UTC

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