Compare or repair fails with the message “Error:exclude list contained invalid identifiers” (4302899)

When a compare is run with ‘exclude’ option, it errors out and the following messages are observed in the compare log (*desvr* or * declt* log):

desvr    2014-04-21 12:57:39.904743 14927 2 [1] Error:exclude list contained invalid identifiers, sk::util::Strings[ "COLUMN_NAME" ]
desvr    2014-04-21 12:57:39.904761 14927 2 [1] Error occurred.
desvr    2014-04-21 12:57:39.923724 14927 2 [1] Status: Init    Elapsed time: 0.028 seconds
desvr    2014-04-21 12:57:39.926342 14927 2 [1] Status : Error
desvr    2014-04-21 12:57:39.934162 14927 2 [1] Compare OWNER.SOURCE_TABLE to OWNER.TARGET_TABLE failed. See error message above.
desvr    2014-04-21 12:57:43.042751 14927 2 [0] Exiting........

The compare command issued is:

sp_ctrl>compare OWNER.SOURCE_TABLE to OWNER.TARGET_TABLE exclude “COLUMN_NAME”