# Handling special characters in xpath

**URL:** <https://community.cdata.com/t/handling-special-characters-in-xpath/937>\
**Category:** CData Arc\
**Tags:** xpath, excel-connector, question, excel\
**Created:** [November 8, 2024, 5:03pm UTC](https://community.cdata.com/t/handling-special-characters-in-xpath/937 "2024-11-08T17:03:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![LNaylor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e9bcb4/32.png) [@LNaylor](https://community.cdata.com/u/LNaylor)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 5:03pm UTC](https://community.cdata.com/t/handling-special-characters-in-xpath/937/1 "2024-11-08T17:03:08Z")

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I’m using an Excel connector to pass a spreadsheet into a Script connector for further processing.

The Excel input contains columns of the form:&nbsp;&nbsp;A: B C

In the Script connector, I try to reference it in an xpath like this:&nbsp;&nbsp;xpath([A:\_B\_C])

But I get the “attribute does not exist” error. I need to deal with or escape that colon character somehow, I just haven’t been able to find where in the docs how to do that yet.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LNaylor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e9bcb4/32.png) [@LNaylor](https://community.cdata.com/u/LNaylor)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 5:08pm UTC](https://community.cdata.com/t/handling-special-characters-in-xpath/937/2 "2024-11-08T17:08:42Z")

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Apologies, please disregard.&nbsp; Newbie error.&nbsp; Just looked at XML output from Excel connector and see that

A: B C

is now of the form

A\_\_B\_C