Impact Matrix doesn´t work when we have Part names with a pipe symbol (|). Best ways to improve the code?

Hi community,

since a few weeks some of my users started to use the pipe symbol ( | ) in part names for esthetic reasons for a small amount of very special Part types. I didn´t expect any problems and actually was happy people spent some energy to keep the database tidy.

But since a few days people reported increased problems with Express ECOs. In some cases the Impact Matrix suddenly wasn´t rendered completely anymore and elements were missing from the list. People didn´t get an error message, but the browser debugger contained a few hints.

I made some investigations and discovered that the new Parts with "|" inside the name cause the trouble. The rendering engine for the Impact Matrix uses the | symbol for splitting the table cells. The | in the name causes additional splits so the cell amount didn´t match the expected columns anymore.

I right now replace the | character in the Impact Matrix on the fly with a unicode character that looks more or less identical.
But I see this solution only as quick workaround until I found a better solution. 

Other ideas that might work:
1. Do not allow the | character in item names. This would require some Methods / pattern checks to ensure people cannot use the character
2. I tried to escape the pipe symbol in the name when rendering the Impact Matrix, but weren´t able to achieve a working result. This one requires a lot of tiny code changes Express ECO ImpactMatrixGrid
3. Use another more unique character for the cell split, like U+1F4A9 . I haven´t tried this one yet, but it´s maybe the most future proof solution. 

Has anyone else have faced the same issue before already? What was your solution? The pipe split is currently used in all Innovator versions that I had tested (12/14+).

To my knowledge we can use all kind of characters in regular text fields. I never have heard that | is a restricted characters. Are there other characters to avoid in names?

Thanks for any hints!

Angela