Reserved symbols / punctuation marks in passwords

[valexander]

Please can anyone help me - I am trying to establish whether there are any reserved symbols in SQL passwords

eg % £ " $ ( / < * etc

The SQL BOL has a list of reserved words but I cannot find a list of reserved symbols.

We have a problem where by for example if the main part of the password is "test" and my user wants to add a punctuation mark into this we get "You are attempting to use an invalid character message"

Specifically

"test$" is accepted "$test" is not accepted
None of "te+st" "+test" "test+" are accepted.

Has anyone else come across this and found a list of the logic that produces these results so I can point my users in the right direction?

Cheers

[rmiao]

If used in an OLE DB or ODBC connection string, a login or password must not contain the following characters: []{}(),;?*! @.

[MAK]

From BOL

Security Rules
Microsoft® SQL Server™ logins, users, roles, and passwords can contain from 1 through 128 characters, including letters, symbols, and digits, (for example Andrew-Fuller, Margaret Peacock, or 13&#57abc). Therefore, Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0, Microsoft Windows® 2000, or Microsoft Windows 98 user names can be used as SQL Server logins.

However, because logins, user names, roles, and passwords are often used in Transact-SQL statements, certain symbols must be delimited with double quotation marks ("), or square brackets ([ ]). Use delimiters in Transact-SQL statements when the SQL Server login, user, role, or password:

Contains, or begins with, a space character.


Begins with the $ or @ character.


Note It is not necessary to specify delimiters when entering logins, users, roles, and passwords into the text boxes of the SQL Server graphical client tools, such as SQL Server Enterprise Manager.

Additionally, a SQL Server login, user, or role cannot:

Contain a backslash (\) character, unless referring to an existing Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 user or group. The backslash separates the Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 computer or domain name from the user name.


Already exist in the current database (or master, for logins only).


Be NULL, or an empty string ("").

[valexander]

MAK,

Thank you very much for that reply which is just what I need. We seem to have some anomalies in how our front end app is handling the password, but I just couldn't find the SQL definitions, so thank you, I can now start the investigation into the app!!

V