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PI point naming best practice

AbuSalamIRL

I know some special characters could break things e.g. integrating with machine learning or 3rd party apps.

 

Does anyone have experience using colon ":" is any issues?

 

Thanks!

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    As far as the Data Archive is concerned, here is a helpful link:

     

    Overview of tag naming conventions

     

    As far as PI Points are concerned, a colon in the name is legal. Granted, there I have seen hundreds of tag naming "standards", so there is no gospel standard for an industry. One standard I have seen using colons typically has a tag name structure of:

     

    37:FIC-101.PV

     

    Where 37 is the Unit. While such a standard is in the minority, a few interesting things about it is you can (1) sort quickly by Unit, and (2) there are 3 distinct delimiters to help you parse the tag name into distinct parts.

     

    While percent sign is allowed, be advised that it may cause issues on SQL-like searches where the percent sign is a wildcard.

     

    As you mention integrating with 3rd party apps or machine learning, you would need to research what limitations those products may impose. Do those products work directly with the PI Data Archive OR can they work with an AFDatabase. With an AFDatabase, the AFAttributes can have a friendlier and less obtuse name than an ISA Tag.