# Textfile --\> tags allowed characters?

**URL:** <https://community.mp3tag.de/t/textfile-tags-allowed-characters/49558>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [July 7, 2020, 10:28am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/textfile-tags-allowed-characters/49558 "2020-07-07T10:28:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lugosi84](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Lugosi84](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Lugosi84)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2020, 10:28am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/textfile-tags-allowed-characters/49558/1 "2020-07-07T10:28:56Z")

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I am unsure of the limitations of this function and am trying to become more sure of them so that I can correctly format my input file.  
I have the following for an input file (2 sample lines):

_23 - Losing My Religion - (from Out of Time) – 4:43_  
_24 - Country Feedback - (Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe, Bob Dylan) (from Out of Time) – 5:25_

If I use this 'Format string' in the dialog:  
_%track% - %title% - %comment%_

I get what I am looking for, which is:  
_track: 23_  
_title: Losing My Religion_  
_comment: (from Out of Time) – 4:43_

_track: 24_  
_title: Country Feedback_  
_comment: (Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe, Bob Dylan) (from Out of Time) – 5:25_

BUT, if I use:  
_%track% - %title% - %comment% - %dummy%_

it cannot be parsed.

Is there a limit to how many -s I can use in the input file? Possibly I am missing some more subtle error somewhere else in the input file?

Related question: Are -,,/ the only delimiters that I can use in an input line? I tried using the parentheses as delimiters, for example - _(%comment%)_ and it could not be parsed. Is that supposed to be a limitation? If so, not a big deal at all....I am just trying to standardize how I need to massage the input file.so that it works correctly.

Thank you very much for the help!

--Jim

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**Author:** ![Crissov](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/crissov/32/6619_2.png) [@Crissov](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Crissov)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2020, 11:26am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/textfile-tags-allowed-characters/49558/2 "2020-07-07T11:26:20Z")

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The dash before the time is not a simple hyphen-minus `-` U+002D but an en dash `–` U+2013.

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**Author:** ![Lugosi84](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Lugosi84](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Lugosi84)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2020, 11:56am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/textfile-tags-allowed-characters/49558/3 "2020-07-07T11:56:42Z")

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Welp, I went through and manually changed all of those last '-'s to regular dashes (on the keyboard below the '\_') and it worked just fine! Thank you for that, Crissoiv! I guess I can see a slight difference between the dashes. How did you know that was the problem? Are your eyes just more attuned to that issue than mine?  
Now I will know to keep an eye out for that type of thing.

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**Author:** ![Crissov](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/crissov/32/6619_2.png) [@Crissov](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Crissov)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2020, 2:07pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/textfile-tags-allowed-characters/49558/4 "2020-07-07T14:07:34Z")

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You could have used it in the expression, `%track% - %title% - %comment% – %dummy%`.

In fixed-width fonts, the difference in width is hard to see, but in your initial quote it was quite obvious for me.

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**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2026, 12:28pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/textfile-tags-allowed-characters/49558/5 "2026-02-09T12:28:42Z")

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