Range name special characters

A quick test shows that Excel allows only two special characters to begin a
name: \ and _. That is, I can define these two names:

\Foo
_Foo

I've used the second version occasionally, but never the first. Has anyone
used the first version much? Have you found any practical problems with it?

Thanks.

Charley Kyd
ExcelUser.com

I've never used \, and never would, since XL's documentation says that
only a letter or an underscore may start a name.

While you may not have problems now, there's no guarantee that future
versions won't have a problem with \, nor that \ will work in
international versions.

Besides, in VBA, \ is the integer division operator, so I'd probably get
confused.

'In article <[email protected]>,
"Charley Kyd" <kyd at incsight dot com> wrote:

> A quick test shows that Excel allows only two special characters to begin a
> name: \ and _. That is, I can define these two names:
>
> \Foo
> _Foo
>
> I've used the second version occasionally, but never the first. Has anyone
> used the first version much? Have you found any practical problems with it?

Charley Kyd wrote...
>A quick test shows that Excel allows only two special characters to
begin a
>name: \ and _. That is, I can define these two names:
>
>\Foo
>_Foo
>
>I've used the second version occasionally, but never the first. Has
anyone
>used the first version much? Have you found any practical problems
with it?

It provides partial compatibility with Lotus 123 macro names, which in
123R2 always began with \. However, as Microsoft has been removing 123
compatibility features over the past few releases, it may be just a
matter of time before support for \ in defined names is completely
eliminated. Best not to use it.

Charley Kyd wrote...
>A quick test shows that Excel allows only two special characters to
begin a
>name: \ and _. That is, I can define these two names:
>
>\Foo
>_Foo
>
>I've used the second version occasionally, but never the first. Has
anyone
>used the first version much? Have you found any practical problems
with it?

It provides partial compatibility with Lotus 123 macro names, which in
123R2 always began with \. However, as Microsoft has been removing 123
compatibility features over the past few releases, it may be just a
matter of time before support for \ in defined names is completely
eliminated. Best not to use it.