Ensure activity identifiers cannot contain white space

[emmajclegg]

IATI Publisher currently allows users to enter an activity identifier that contains white space:

This is then used to generate the iati-identifier field:

According to IATI Standard guidance, activity identifiers should not start or end with spaces or new lines. We also know identifiers can be hard to process if they contain spaces or symbols.

Can we:

• add data validation to the activity-identifier data entry form field to prevent a user from saving a string that contains any white space or special characters (apart from hyphens "-" )
• (optional) decide whether to apply the same rules to NEW activities that are being imported into IATI Publisher. We do not want to block the download and re-upload of existing activities that break these rules

[stevieflow]

Thanks @emmajclegg

I'd also suggest that an activity identifier should avoid any use of special characters, except hyphens.

As you note, this isn't explicit in the IATI guidance, but we are more aware of what makes a good identifier, and using characters that might break URIs could be helpful: eg any of: \ / !"£$%^&*()

use case: you input an identifier 1234/5678/910

An application that then uses this identifier could "break", by falsely interpreting these characters as instructions