[bug] The location field doesn't allow to use a space in the name

[bogdanr]

Pretty much everywhere in HA I can use location fields with a space. And I have a bunch defined like this. But in the zwavejs2mqtt UI I can't do that so when I migrate it creates a bit of a mess.

Can we allow a space in the location and the name?

[robertsLando]

@bogdanr Could you use underscores? The problem is that locations are then used on topics, even if spaces are allowed in topics I would prefer not have them...

[bogdanr]

I actually used underscores, then moved every device in the locations with space and then deleted the locations with underscores. I belive that since HA allows using space, for the sake of consistency, we should allow the same here.

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On Fri, Mar 12, 2021, 17:03 Daniel Lando ***@***.***> wrote: @bogdanr <https://github.com/bogdanr> Could you use underscores? The problem is that locations are then used on topics, even if spaces are allowed in topics I would prefer not have them... — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#877 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAIHUQZBCYGMFA42MSXMWCDTDIUMNANCNFSM4ZCOCAYQ> .

[dwradcliffe]

I agree, I had spaces in names and locations before (in ozwd and HA) and this is going to create a mess if we have 2 versions of the same name/location. Please allow spaces for both of these fields.

[robertsLando]

Never use spaces in a topic
A space is the natural enemy of every programmer. When things are not going the way they should, spaces make it much harder to read and debug topics. As with leading forward slashes, just because something is allowed, doesn’t mean it should be used. UTF-8 has many different white space types, such uncommon characters should be avoided.

From: https://www.hivemq.com/blog/mqtt-essentials-part-5-mqtt-topics-best-practices/

I have no problem adding spaces on location, it's just not a good practise when it needs to be used with mqtt.

[dwradcliffe]

Perhaps a different compromise would be to allow spaces but then translate to underscores for MQTT topics? That doesn't completely solve this but at least fixes it for users that don't need MQTT.