Structure Group Directory Name starting with a dot '.'

Question

Is it possible to have a directory of a Structure Group starting with dot .?

We are migrating from an existing project to Tridion and maintaining same folder structure in Tridion. Some of the folders in these project begin with dot.

But Tridion does not allow to have a directory name starting with dot.

Note: Even windows wont allow to create a folder starting with a dot, unless you create with command prompt or keep the folder name like .<foldername>.

Answer 1

It is is possible to allow additional characters to be used for Directories and Filenames. However your filesystem obviously needs to allow it, and you are required to modify the Tridion System Schema.

To modify the system schema, you must edit the cm_xml_usr.xsd file, located inside ..\Tridion\bin\ and modify the regexp pattern inside the name="FileName" (or name="Directory") element to allow whatever characters you want to allow:

<xsd:simpleType name="FileName">
  <xsd:annotation>
    <xsd:documentation>Simple type used to restrict file names</xsd:documentation>
  </xsd:annotation>
  <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
    <xsd:maxLength value="512"/>
    <xsd:pattern value="[-a-zA-Z0-9!\(\)_~.&amp;\ ]+"/>
  </xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType>

But please note, if you allow characters that aren't allowed on the taget filesystem, all you did is just break the systems ability to publish/deploy.

Answer 2

The structure group name can contain a . but the StructureGroup directory name cannot contain a .. Since the CM runs on Windows, only windows OS valid paths are allowed in SG directory name.

If you try create a SG with directory name that begins with . you will end up seeing the following: