Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Preparing for a certification exam? Ask exam experts all your questions on May 15th. Register now.

Reply
cgkas
Helper V
Helper V

Rename all column headers removing certain text

Hello to all,

 

I want to remove some text ("ABC.XYZ_") from all column headers.

 

The code I have so far is like this but for the List of second step I get error.

let
    Source = Table.FromRows({{1,2,3,4}},{"ABC.XYZ_4_NB.5", "ABC.XYZ_2_NB.9","ABC.XYZ_7_NB.3", "ABC.XYZ_K_MJ.3"}),
    RenameHeaders = List.Transform(Table.ColumnNames(Source), each {_, Text.Remove(_,"ABC.XYZ_")}),
    Output = Table.RenameColumns(Source, RenameHeaders)
in
    Output

Maybe some could help me with this.

 

Thanks

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
d_gosbell
Super User
Super User

Try changing the Text.Remove to Text.Replace and replace with an empty string

 

eg.

 

let
    Source = Table.FromRows({{1,2,3,4}},{"ABC.XYZ_4_NB.5", "ABC.XYZ_2_NB.9","ABC.XYZ_7_NB.3", "ABC.XYZ_K_MJ.3"}),
    RenameHeaders = List.Transform(Table.ColumnNames(Source), each {_, Text.Replace(_,"ABC.XYZ_","")}),
    Output = Table.RenameColumns(Source, RenameHeaders)
in
    Output

View solution in original post

5 REPLIES 5
d_gosbell
Super User
Super User

Try changing the Text.Remove to Text.Replace and replace with an empty string

 

eg.

 

let
    Source = Table.FromRows({{1,2,3,4}},{"ABC.XYZ_4_NB.5", "ABC.XYZ_2_NB.9","ABC.XYZ_7_NB.3", "ABC.XYZ_K_MJ.3"}),
    RenameHeaders = List.Transform(Table.ColumnNames(Source), each {_, Text.Replace(_,"ABC.XYZ_","")}),
    Output = Table.RenameColumns(Source, RenameHeaders)
in
    Output

is there a way to use an OR operator or remove multiple characters from the headers...

 

Trying to replace the underscore and NonAgg from my headers. I am able to remove the NonAgg but not able to remove the underscore and would like to. 

 

here is my code

let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="Table1"]}[Content],
RenameHeaders = List.Transform(Table.ColumnNames(Source), each {_, Text.Replace(_,"NonAgg"," ")}),
Output = Table.RenameColumns(Source, RenameHeaders)
in
Output


@spags09 wrote:

is there a way to use an OR operator or remove multiple characters from the headers...

 


I don't think you can use OR in Text.Replace, but there are a couple of other approaches

 

Option 1: you could use List.Accumulate to loop over a list of unwanted characters/strings and remove them


let
Source = Table.FromRows(Json.Document(Binary.Decompress(Binary.FromText("i45WclTSUTI0MlaKjQUA", BinaryEncoding.Base64), Compression.Deflate)), let _t = ((type nullable text) meta [Serialized.Text = true]) in type table [Column_1 = _t, #"Column NonAgg Sales" = _t]),
#"Changed Type" = Table.TransformColumnTypes(Source,{{"Column 1", type text}, {"Column NonAgg Sales", Int64.Type}}),
OriginalColumnNames = Table.ColumnNames(Source),
ReplacementList = {"_", "NonAgg"},
RenameHeaders = List.Transform(OriginalColumnNames, (columnName) => { columnName, List.Accumulate( ReplacementList, columnName, (state, current) => Text.Replace(state, current," "))}),
Output = Table.RenameColumns(Source, RenameHeaders)
in
Output

 

Option 2: You could do a sequence of List.Transform to apply the text.replacements one after the other. This is probably easier to understand, but tricker to add multiple replacement strings as you have to chain the steps together

 

let
Source = Table.FromRows(Json.Document(Binary.Decompress(Binary.FromText("i45WclTSUTI0MlaKjQUA", BinaryEncoding.Base64), Compression.Deflate)), let _t = ((type nullable text) meta [Serialized.Text = true]) in type table [Column_1 = _t, #"Column NonAgg Sales" = _t]),
OriginalColumnNames = Table.ColumnNames(Source),
RenameHeaders1 = List.Transform(OriginalColumnNames, each Text.Replace(_,"NonAgg"," ")),
RenameHeaders2 = List.Transform(RenameHeaders1, each Text.Replace(_,"_"," ")),
NewColumnNames = List.Zip({OriginalColumnNames,RenameHeaders2}),
Output = Table.RenameColumns(Source, NewColumnNames)
in
Output

Those worked perfectly!! Thanks so much for the quick reply and solution. I really appreciate it 🙂 

Hi @d_gosbell 

 

Excellent, It works perfect.

 

Best regards


Helpful resources

Announcements
PBIApril_Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - April 2025

Check out the April 2025 Power BI update to learn about new features.

Notebook Gallery Carousel1

NEW! Community Notebooks Gallery

Explore and share Fabric Notebooks to boost Power BI insights in the new community notebooks gallery.

April2025 Carousel

Fabric Community Update - April 2025

Find out what's new and trending in the Fabric community.