IBM Watson Assistant returning FALSE in response with # and a number

Question

I have a list of plant numbers: (i.e. #0001). When a user asks about a plant, IBM Watson Assistant is turning "#0001" of "Plant #0001 is at Location A." with false: "Plant false is at Location A."

However, if I change the response with a space in between the # sign and number, to "Plant # 0001 is in Location A." it is fine.

Even if I turn off the system entity "sys-number" it does the same thing.

Has anyone found a solution?

Answer 1

The reason for return false is that the character # is used in short-hand syntax to indicate entities. You probably have not defined an entity #0001. Thus, the value is false.

If you escape the your plant number, e.g., \#0001, the value is printed correctly. Bottom line, if you want to print anything beginning with special characters like @, $ or #, use the \ in front of them to escape them.