SharePoint Tip #1: Changing a Site Column's Name
In Windows SharePoint Services v3.0, each site column has two names:
- the Internal Name, which is the name that was given to it when it was created and that will always be associated to the site column; and
- the Display Name, which starts the same as the Internal Name, but can be changed. Also, if the initial column name has special characters (such as spaces), the display name will keep the special characters, but the internal name will have them replaced by codes.
This fact can cause some problems when writing code that interacts with SharePoints object model, since some of its methods require that you use the field's Internal Name, and others the Display Name.