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New2PowerBI
Helper III
Helper III

Combining Columns

I searched through this community and found the following formula for a new column:

 

Text.From([Column) & Text.From([Column2]) & Text.From([Column3])

 

I used it and it works great!  However, if the column has either null or number values, it errors out.  How can I overcome this?

5 REPLIES 5
v-ljerr-msft
Microsoft Employee
Microsoft Employee

Hi @New2PowerBI,

 

According your description above, I have tested it with the latest version(2.48.4792.721 64-bit (July 2017)) of Power BI Desktop on my environment. The formula works all fine without any issue, even when the column has either null or number values.

 

r3.PNG

 

What's the error? Could you post here? It's better that you could also share a sample pbix file which can reproduce the issue. So that we can better assist on it. You can upload it to OneDrive or Dropbox and post the link here. Do mask sensitive data before uploading. Smiley Happy

 

Regards

Here is what error I get:

 CombiningColumns_Error.jpg

 

 Here is the updated one:

= Table.AddColumn(#"Changed Type6", "PMSearchData", each [PMNUM]&" , "&[DESCRIPTION]&"   ,   "&[JPNUM]&"   ,   "&[USEFREQUENCY]&"   ,   "&[FEQUNIT]&"   ,   "&[ROUTE])

 

I have no issues if I do just 3 items.  In this case, I added three more fields and I received the error.  Not sure if it has to do with numbers and/or null values now, maybe it's more tied to the number of columns I'm trying to pull in versus what is in the column?

 

According to your initial information, I would expect that your code would look like:

 

= Table.AddColumn(#"Changed Type6", "PMSearchData", each Text.From([PMNUM])&" , "&Text.From([DESCRIPTION])&"   ,   "&Text.From([JPNUM])&"   ,   "&Text.From([USEFREQUENCY])&"   ,   "&Text.From([FEQUNIT])&"   ,   "&Text.From([ROUTE]))
Specializing in Power Query Formula Language (M)

Thanks!  I've been looking at this so long that I missed the obvious!  🙂

 

I corrected and now I get a different error.  See attached.  CombiningColumns_ExpressionError.jpg

Well, the message looks quite obvious: you are refering to a field [FEQUNIT} that doesn't exist.

Just verify and correct the field name.

Note: PowerQuery is case sensitive, e.g. "FEQUNIT" is not "FeqUnit".

Specializing in Power Query Formula Language (M)

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