topic Re: Spaces in choices name in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Spaces in choices name

BrentKinal1 — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 16:42:26 GMT

When having choice names with spaces in them my form converts with warnings, I get that it is probably best to not have the spaces in the choices especially for select one questions, but in the case of a select multiple (where the answer is saved as a text field) or where the bind::esri:fieldType is set to null, would it be OK for my choices names to have spaces or would this cause issues in my form?

Re: Spaces in choices name

JohnathanHasthorpe — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 00:53:37 GMT

Hi Brent

It it is not actually possible to publish a survey through Connect with a select_multiple question that references a choice list with spaces in the name values. So having no spaces is a requirement.

Thanks

John

Re: Spaces in choices name

LeonardOlyott — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 01:33:39 GMT

Thanks for confirming this John. Just ran into this now where a select_one was working fine with spaces, changed it to a select_multiple and it fails.

Cheers

Len

Re: Spaces in choices name

BrentKinal1 — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 13:40:39 GMT

Thanks John, Just to clarify would it be OK for a select one? It seems to be working fine where I have a select one that is set to field type null where the selected value is used in a calculation with in another field.

Cheers,

Brent

Re: Spaces in choices name

JohnathanHasthorpe — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 22:36:48 GMT

Hi Brent - spaces in a choice name will work for a select one. However it is not best practice for the XLSform spec that Survey123 uses, and that is why you get a warning (as opposed to an error).

Re: Spaces in choices name

JustinDonaghy — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 09:17:02 GMT

Can you explain why this is , kind of strange I cannot pick multiple answers and they can't have spaces. currently doing a safety and can't write full answers

Re: Spaces in choices name

RistoYlem — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:41:58 GMT

I have the same problem. I want to populate text field with comma separated values from multiple coice question, but I cant have correct values into my field because of this limitation. I want my values to be with spaces to show them to end users properly. Quite weird limitation, select one question does not have this limitation. It shouldt be programmatically super hard to concatenate multiple choices with spaces into one field with commas between. @IsmaelChivite