# Illegal characters in elasticsearch field names

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegal-characters-in-elasticsearch-field-names/17196>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 25, 2014, 11:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegal-characters-in-elasticsearch-field-names/17196 "2014-04-25T11:42:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![jprante](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jprante/32/44941_2.png) [@jprante](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jprante)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 12:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/illegal-characters-in-elasticsearch-field-names/17196/2 "2014-04-25T12:56:19Z")

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Special characters in Elasticsearch field names are:

. (for navigation between name components)

# (for delimiting name components in \_uid, should work, but is discouraged)

- (for matching names)

There are also some restrictions on type names for mappings:

- must not start with underscore "\_"
- must not contain comma ","
- must not contain hash mark "#"
- usage of point "." is discouraged but possible

Jörg

On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Eliezer Shindler \<[eliezershindler@gmail.com](mailto:eliezershindler@gmail.com)

> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Besides from special characters, elasticsearch also does not seem to allow  
> other characters in fild names, such as \<,\> and a comma. Could anyone  
> please provide me with a full list of illegal characters for field names.
> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> Eli
> 
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