Accessing fields with special characters

Problem / use case

You want to access fields with special characters such as periods (.), dashes (-), spaces (), or emojis, etc...

Solution - `$d`

You usually don’t need to use $d to access data fields in DataPrime. It’s the default namespace, so fields like status_code are automatically interpreted as $d.status_code.

But in these cases with special characters using $d is required.

1. Field names with dots

If your field name includes a dot (.), DataPrime treats it as a nested path unless you use bracket notation. This can lead to unexpected behavior.

For example:

{
  "kubernetes.namespace": "dev",
  "kubernetes": {
    "namespace": "prod"
  }
}

To access the field with a literal dot in the name (kubernetes.namespace), use:

$d['kubernetes.namespace']

result

"dev"

To access the nested field inside the kubernetes object (kubernetes.namespace), use:

$d['kubernetes']['namespace']

result

"prod"

2. Field names with spaces

Dot notation doesn’t support spaces. Use bracket notation:

choose $d['Total Salary']

3. Field names with emojis or non-ASCII characters

Fields with special characters require brackets:

create face from case_equals {
  $m.severity,
  DEBUG    -> '🧐',
  VERBOSE  -> '😶‍🌫️',
  INFO     -> '🙂',
  WARNING  -> '😬',
  ERROR    -> '😩',
  CRITICAL -> '💀',
  _          -> '🤷'
}
| countby face as $d['🙂'] into $d['# of times I made this face']