topic Re: Problem with space character in simple xml for dashboard in Dashboards & Visualizations

Problem with space character in simple xml for dashboard

C_Sparn — Tue, 27 May 2014 15:24:45 GMT

Hello,

I have the problem, that space characters are not saved in the simple xml structure of my dashboards. This is a part of one of my dashboards:

<input type="multiselect" token="group" searchWhenChanged="true">
  <label>group by...</label>
  <choice value="ChangeDay">Day</choice>
  <prefix>by </prefix>
  <delimiter> </delimiter>
</input>

You can see that I have a space character at delimiter and one after by. That one at deleimiter is saved correctly, but that after by is deleted after a reload. How can I save all space characters permanently?

Greetings

Re: Problem with space character in simple xml for dashboard

jkat54 — Tue, 27 May 2014 15:30:35 GMT

What happens if you use   instead of spaces?

<prefix>by&#32;</prefix>

Re: Problem with space character in simple xml for dashboard

afishkin_splunk — Tue, 27 May 2014 16:05:58 GMT

Space for is not trimmed, just leave as
Try by

Re: Problem with space character in simple xml for dashboard

C_Sparn — Wed, 28 May 2014 06:31:20 GMT

The space between delimiter is saved permanently, so there is no problem, but the space after by is deleted after reopening/reloading the dashboard.

Re: Problem with space character in simple xml for dashboard

C_Sparn — Wed, 28 May 2014 06:36:35 GMT

Nice idea with using but that is not accepted by splunk. But I also tried &#32 and this is working now!
Thanks for the help. Can you cahnge your answer to &#32 (don't forget the ; after 32) that I can vote for it?

Greetings

Re: Problem with space character in simple xml for dashboard

jkat54 — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 20:22:19 GMT

updated, way to think outside the box and build upon my idea!

Re: Problem with space character in simple xml for dashboard

jkat54 — Sun, 26 May 2019 12:25:27 GMT

For anyone else showing up here that doesn't understand the solution; I'll explain why this works and how to use the same technique for other characters too.

It works because this is the percent encoded value for what is the spacebar. Percent encoding is used in a variety of ways including urlencoding. It's a way to avoid passing special characters which may be misinterpreted by your web app (in this case the splunk web UI).

More here:

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding

There are plenty of urlencoding reference websites if you'd like to encode your own characters. But my favorite method is with TA Web Tools (shameless self promotion).

https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/3420/