Supplying part of date table for CONTAINS

[gvg]

Hi experts,

I am looking how to supply part of date table for CONTAINS function. This is part of my measure:

CONTAINS ('Date', DATESBETWEEN('Date'[Date],DATE(2017,5,1),DATE(2017,5,31)), [DateOfFirstBuy] )  

and I get an error message saying that CONTAINS requires a column reference as an argument number 2. DATESBETWEEN function returns table containing a single column of date values, according to MSDN description. Is this not a "column reference"? How do I make a column reference? 

[v-yulgu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @gvg,

Please see the syntax of CONTAINS, its second parameter must be columnName.

CONTAINS(<table>, <columnName>, <value>[, <columnName>, <value>]…)

However, DATESBETWEEN returns a table that contains a column of dates that begins with the start_date and continues until the end_date.

DATESBETWEEN(<dates>,<start_date>,<end_date>)

That is why you get such an error message.

In your scenario, to supplying part of date table,  could you try:

Column = CONTAINS (DATESBETWEEN('Date'[Date],DATE(2017,5,1),DATE(2017,5,31)), 'Date'[Date], [DateOfFirstBuy] )

Best regards,
Yuliana Gu

[Greg_Deckler]

Try something like:

Measure 6 = VAR mydates = DATESBETWEEN(Dates[Date],DATE(2017,1,1),DATE(2017,3,1))
RETURN CONTAINS ('Table 3', [Date], DATE(2017,1,31) ) 

[gvg]

@Greg_Deckler , I am not sure I understand this. Do you mean I need to use variable? But CONTAINS does not accept variable, does it?