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BINewbie1's avatar
BINewbie1
Helper II
3 years ago
Solved

Counting comma delimited text strings

Hi there,

 

I have a field in my data model that represents a reason for something occuring. The field is is made up of between zero and up to nine strings of numbers, the field is formatted as text. The string corresponds to a text field in a look up table. In the data model there are nine 'reasons'.

 

Each string is nine digits long (using the digits 0-9), and within each cell there can be multiple reasons for the occurance, each separated with a comma. I think at most all nine of the reasons might be present in a single cell, but the same reason will not be there more than once.

 

I need to count the number of each of the 9 reasons across the rows, and present that in the visualisations as a table using the actual text 'reason' from the look up table. It obviously needs to be filterable by various other fields in that table - date, and a few categories. I've set up the relationship betweeen the two enities and feel fairly confident in that part.

 

Any idea about how to do this, I'm reluctant to split the reasons into differernt columms as that seems messy, but if that's the best way. Do I need a measure for each of the nine reasons, that also seems messy - and a bit time consuming.

 

Either a DAX code or suggestion in Power Query. Any ideas?

 

Many thanks,

 

Adam

Counting comma deiminated text strings
  • tamerj1's avatar
    tamerj1
    3 years ago

    BINewbie1 
    Looking at this screenshot I instantly realized my mistake. We need to filter the complete table as the VALUES of the column will return only distinct values and duplicates won't be counted.

    However, in the example that you have provided earlier, the first code would have produced 3 not 2. I will create a sample file to double check. For now please try

     

     

    Count Referal Text =
COUNTROWS (
    FILTER (
        CROSSJOIN (
            pre_referral,
            VALUES ( 'Lookup BBBC_referalreasonquestions_health'[Code] )
        ),
        CONTAINSSTRING (
            pre_referral[bbbc_referralreasonquestions_health],
            'Lookup BBBC_referalreasonquestions_health'[Code]
        )
    )
)

     

     

    *UPDATE

    Attached is the sample file


    Also make sure there is no relationship between the two tables. Some times it is automatically created without you even noticing. 

16 Replies

  • BINewbie1's avatar
    BINewbie1
    Helper II
    3 years ago

    Hi tamerj1,

     

    Thanks.

     

    So in this field say there are 5 rows, which look like:

     

    441690000, 441690001, 441690004, 441690006  

    441690001, 441690003, 441690004, 441690006

    441690002, 441690005
    441690003, 441690005, 441690006, 441690008, 441690009
    441690002, 441690003, 441690005, 441690007, 441690008, 441690009
     
    I'd like to end up with a visualisation showing:
     
    441690000 = 1 
    441690001 = 2
    441690002 = 2
    441690003 = 3
    441690004 = 2
    441690005 = 3
    441690006 = 3
    441690007 = 1
    441690008 = 2

    441690009 = 2

     

    Watching a youtube video I've come up with the following Measure, which seems to do something but maybe is under reporting, and seems to have a large number of null/blank fields, which maybe the data, or maybe the Measure.

     

    Count Referal Text = COUNTROWS(CALCULATETABLE(pre_referral,FILTER(pre_referral,IFERROR(SEARCH(SELECTEDVALUE('Lookup BBBC_referalreasonquestions_health'[Code], ""), pre_referral[bbbc_referralreasonquestions_health]),-1)>0)))
     
    Thanks,

    Adam

     

    • tamerj1's avatar
      tamerj1
      Community Champion
      3 years ago

      BINewbie1 

      Assuming pre_referral[bbbc_referralreasonquestions_health] is the column that contains the comma delimit strings and 'Lookup BBBC_referalreasonquestions_health'[Code] is column from the disconnected table tyat contains the distinct unique values of the strings (also text data type not integer) which is the column placed in the table visual, then please try

      Count Referal Text =
      COUNTROWS (
      FILTER (
      CROSSJOIN (
      VALUES ( pre_referral[bbbc_referralreasonquestions_health] ),
      VALUES ( 'Lookup BBBC_referalreasonquestions_health'[Code] )
      ),
      CONTAINSSTRING (
      pre_referral[bbbc_referralreasonquestions_health],
      'Lookup BBBC_referalreasonquestions_health'[Code]
      )
      )
      )

       

      • BINewbie1's avatar
        BINewbie1
        Helper II
        3 years ago

        Thanks for offering this.

         

        It doesn't work i'm afraid, just a 1 value for each reason, and 144 for 151 blanks (no idea where that's coming from). Maybe its counting distictvalues?

         

        The string value in the lookup table was actually set to an integer, but I changed it to text, but seems to make no difference to either measure.

         

        Thanks again.

         

        Adam 

  • BINewbie1's avatar
    BINewbie1
    Helper II
    3 years ago

    Yes so on a bit of a review of the data, the measure is not working as desired.

     

    Its only counting the strings when they are in a cell on their own, not when they are part of a cluster of other strings in the same cell. Hence the numbers significantly under reporting.

     

    I should add at this point that the strings, are seperated only by a comma, not by a space as well, as in my example before:

     

    for example:

     

    441690003,441690008
    441690003,441690004,441690005,441690007,441690008
    441690003
    441690003

     

    The current measure would show:

     

    441690003 = 2 - for some reason only when the text string is on its own.

     

    but it should count:

     

    441690003 = 4 

     

    Adam

    • tamerj1's avatar
      tamerj1
      Community Champion
      3 years ago

      BINewbie1 

      Strange. My proposed measure should give a result of 4. There must be another issue perhaps extra space. Also double check the order of columns inside CONTAINSSTING

      • BINewbie1's avatar
        BINewbie1
        Helper II
        3 years ago

        I'm not great with coding generally, took be ages to work out I needed an extra comma to make one be of code work the other day.

         

        Having looked up the syntax for CONTAINSTRING, its round the correct way.

         

        I'll carry on trying to find a space.

         

        Thanks,

         

        Adam