Using column name in calculated column. Dax equivalent to table.columnnames.

[Nathalie12]

Hello,

Is there a DAX function that returns the columnnames as text (or date)?
I need to calculate some values in a column and as a condition I need to use the column names of a table as conditions (I need to use the value which was used at the right date).  In Power-Query I could make this work using the Table.ColumnNames function, however I'm working in DAX. I'd rather not change my table with extra columns for the dates, because that would be less clear (this data source will be maintained manually) and I only have to use these dates for this calculation.

Below an example of my table:

Category	13-07-2022	20-07-2022
Cat01	2,3	2,4
Cat02	2,5	2,7

I will be using it to calculate with these values corresponding to this other table (the articles (Art01) and categories (Cat01) are linked in yet another table):

Article	Price	Date
Art01	2,12	14-07-2022
Art01	3,54	23-07-2022
Art02	2,43	14-07-2022

If you have other ideas I'd love to hear them. I have just started working with Power Bi so I'm sure there are some better ways to do this. 
Thanks in advance!

[Nathalie12 · Accepted solution]

I eventually did have to unpivot the table and referenced the table in order to be able to use the values. It does not feel like the best solution but it does work. 

[daXtreme]

Well, unpivoting the first table is what Power BI really wants 🙂 To know how to structure your models to be GOOD (wide and short dimensions, narrow and long facts), please read this article by Microsoft: Understand star schema and the importance for Power BI … (bing.com)

[Nathalie12]

I know, I was just struggling with it because I didn't really want to have these extra dates in my model, because I'm not really sure how to connect these to my date table and I would only need these couple dates as a condition in one if statement. I could do this manually but then it would have to be changed manually each when new columns are added, so I was hoping I could use a function like table.columnnames to get those values automatically. This method could work within Power Query but because the values are divided over two related tables this was unfortunately not possible.

I still don't really know if what I currently have is correct because I now have in both of these two tables a start and enddate, so connecting with the date table is difficult. For the price table I now have an active relationship with the start date and an inactive for the end date, because I don't need that as much. 

[daXtreme]

@Nathalie12 

If you don't know if what you have is correct and you've got duplication in your model... then I think you really should take some time to understand what data modeling is all about. I've already pointed you in the right direction in my prior reply. Please read the article about the importance of star schema for Power BI. I promise it'll be enlightening.

[daXtreme]

@Nathalie12 

As far as I know, no, you can't do this. In DAX you cannot execute code dynamically as you would, say, using exec() in other languages. Also, Power Query's purpose in life is totally different than DAX's. They are tools for 2 different things.