# Slash & Dot Separators

This aspect of the mapping between EMS destination names and SmartSockets subjects is straightforward, one-to-one, and bidirectional.

EMS destination names consist of tokens separated by the dot (`.`) character. SmartSockets subjects consists of tokens preceded by the slash (`/`) character (like UNIX directory pathnames).

For example, the EMS name `foo.bar.baz` corresponds to the SmartSockets name `/foo/bar/baz`. (Remember that SmartSockets names must begin with a leading slash, but EMS names need not begin with a leading dot. A leading dot indicates an empty element preceding it.)

The slash and dot characters have complementary roles in EMS and SmartSockets. In EMS slash is an ordinary character, while dot is a separator. In SmartSockets slash is a separator, while dot is an ordinary character. To translate names between EMS and SmartSockets, substitute these characters one for another. For example, the EMS name `foo/bar.baz` corresponds to the SmartSockets name `/foo.bar/baz`. However, to avoid confusion, we discourage using either slash or dot as ordinary characters.

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