PV names

[kerstien@luke.atdiv.lanl.gov (Deb Kerstiens)]

Bill writes :
<What characters are allowable in PV names?  If there is a document that
<spells out the restrictions, could some kind soul pas me a pointer?
and the failing example is
    BL09.0%PLC%BM00%EPS

The character "." is a special one in EPICS because it is used to
separate the record name and field name.
When dbFindRecord is called it does:

  while (*precordName && (*precordName != '.') && (lenName < PVNAME_SZ)){
	        *pconvName++ = *precordName++;
        lenName++;
    }
 
i.e. it's looking for the "." as the end of the record name, so that pretty much
makes "." a character to avoid in pv names.  ":" and "_" work in names--could you
possibly substitute one of those.  It doesn't look like anything else is illegal,
but I wouldn't put money on it just yet. And don't forget the limitation on length.

	Deb