Forum Discussion

trungle's avatar
trungle
New Member
9 years ago
Solved

Delete columns if they exist

I'm in the process of setting up a custom function to import multiple CSV files into one dataset. The files are all formatted in the same way, however they don't always contain the same columns.  Th...
  • dedelman_clng's avatar
    9 years ago

    What you may actually want is to "unpivot" all of your CSVs before merging them.  When you go to create measures, it could be problematic if you have a "wide" data set with specific columns, rather than a "narrow" dataset with a "TimeType" column and the value.  For example:

     

    Emp Name   Online   Meeting   Offline   
    Joe        2        1         1
    
    Emp Name   Online    Away    OutofOffice
    Mary       3         1       0.5        

     

    "unpivots" (Transform tab, highlight columns, click "Unpivot Columns") to

     

    EmpName  TimeType   Hours
    Joe      Online     2
    Joe      Meeting    1
    Joe      Offline    1
    
    EmpName   TimeType   Hours
    Mary      Online     3
    Mary      Away       1
    Mary      Offline    0.5

     

    which can easily be merged.

     

    Hope this helps,

    David

  • MarcelBeug's avatar
    MarcelBeug
    9 years ago

    Alternatively: Table.RemoveColumns has a parameter missingField with possible values (and shortcuts 0,1,2):

    MissingField.Error (0)

    MissingField.Ignore (1)

    MissingField.UseNull (2)

     

    It looks like you could use MissingField.Ignore (or its shortcut: 1).