XADM: Exported Multi-valued Fields May Vary in Order Listed (190706)

SUMMARY

Some fields within Exchange Server are "multi-valued," meaning that they can have an unspecified number of values assigned to them. An example of a multi-valued field is the E-mail Addresses field. When exporting a mailbox object to a .csv file, this field will have several values, depending on the configuration of the system, each separated by default with a percent sign (%).

The order of the values may change based on any number of changes to the system or mailbox. When writing applications to handle these fields, each value should be parsed out and evaluated before being used. Also, the field may not be in the same order for the same object exported at two different times or on two different computers. In other words, some mailboxes may have their X.400 address as the first value while others have their SMTP value listed first, or one mailbox may have the X.400 address first in one export but in a subsequent export have the SMTP address first.

MORE INFORMATION

The separator character for multi-valued fields can be modified through the Exchange Server Administrator program when the export is being done. From the Tools menu, click Directory Export. Click the Separators button, and change the Property field to the desired character. Valid characters are the percent sign (%), the ampersand (&), the caret (^), the number sign (#), the at symbol (@), the exclamation mark (!), the dollar sign ($), and the double-quote character (").

When doing bulk exports, the separator value can be set with the MVSeparator parameter using the ASCII value of the character with which you want to separate the fields. For example, set the MVSeparator parameter to "MVSeparator=37" to use the % sign as a separator (37 is the ASCII value for the % sign).