Disalow dashes (-) in custom pipeline names

[matthdsm]

Description of the bug

The inclusion of a dash in a custom pipeline name causes all kinds of syntax errors in the generated files because Groovy/Nextflow can't parse words with dashes as variable names.

So we need to either disallow dashes or parse the name and replace them by underscores during template generation/sync

Command used and terminal output

nf-core create --name 'something-with-a-dash'

System information

No response

[mirpedrol]

There are several custom pipelines which already contain dashes, that's the reason why we decided to allow them in unbranded pipelines. Otherwise, this breaks other commands such as sync for these pipelines.
However, it is not recommended to use dashes as you mention, we don't allow dashes when the name is introduced by a CLI prompt to discourage this behaviour, so only creating a new pipeline with a template.yml file will work.
Maybe adding a warning in such cases discouraging the use of dashes will improve the situation?

[matthdsm]

Agreed, short of a fix, a warning would be nice.
Thanks!
M