# Sum by () not working with label with dot in name

**URL:** <https://discuss.prometheus.io/t/sum-by-not-working-with-label-with-dot-in-name/3364>\
**Category:** PromQL\
**Created:** [March 31, 2025, 1:48pm UTC](https://discuss.prometheus.io/t/sum-by-not-working-with-label-with-dot-in-name/3364 "2025-03-31T13:48:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hlxdevops](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/bbce88/32.png) [@hlxdevops](https://discuss.prometheus.io/u/hlxdevops)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:48pm UTC](https://discuss.prometheus.io/t/sum-by-not-working-with-label-with-dot-in-name/3364/1 "2025-03-31T13:48:25Z")

</div>

Hi, I am trying to understand why my PromQL query is not working as I expect.  
This query works as I expect and returns many results.

```auto
sum by (job) (rate(traces_span_metrics_duration_milliseconds_count{"deployment.environment"="PROD","status.code"="STATUS_CODE_ERROR"}[10m]))

```

Every result has `instance` and `http.method` and `span.name` labels.  
If I try to `sum by (instance) ` it also works as I expect, but as soon as I try to sum by any label with a dot e.g. `sum by ("span.name")` I get only `{}` as the result.

In the process of trying to find an answer to this, I have been referred to [UTF-8 in Prometheus](https://prometheus.io/docs/guides/utf8/) _many_ times. I have read this document end to end at least twice, and to the best extent of my limited ability, I don’t believe it contains any information that explains why `sum by ("span.name")` does not work, and implies quoted label values should work in queries.

How can I use `sum by ()` with `span.name` without renaming or mutating the original metric?