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Anonymous
Not applicable

Extract Text Before Delimiter for multiple columns in a single query step

Hi there,

 

I have multiple columns in my data set that all require a query step that involves extracting text before delimiter (Text.BeforeDelimiter).

Is it possible to invoke this for all the required columns using just a single query step, or would I have to do the step for each column individually?

 

Thanks. 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
AlexisOlson
Super User
Super User

Select all of the columns you want to transform before applying Transform > Extract > Text.BeforeDelimiter and it should apply the step to all of the selected columns in a single step with M code that looks like this:

= Table.TransformColumns(Source,
      {
          {"Column1", each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, "|"), type text},
          {"Column2", each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, "|"), type text},
          {"Column3", each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, "|"), type text}
      })

If you need to, you can edit each of these transformations separately (like if different columns use different delimiters or need an entirely different transformation).

View solution in original post

5 REPLIES 5
v-angzheng-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi, @Anonymous 

May I ask if your problem has been solved? Is the above post helpful to you?

The above solutions will all work for you. If  it helps you, could you please mark the post which help as Answered? It will help the others in the community find the solution easily if they face the same problem with you. Thank you.

In addition, if there are multiple separators in one column, you can also try the Text.SplitAny function

 

 

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Zeon Zheng

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

CNENFRNL
Community Champion
Community Champion

 

 

let
    Source = Table.FromRows(Json.Document(Binary.Decompress(Binary.FromText("i45Wys8sLU/VNTJW0lFKzMmuSUpWyAYykxSMdRRSdBSKi5ViYwE=", BinaryEncoding.Base64), Compression.Deflate)), let _t = ((type nullable text) meta [Serialized.Text = true]) in type table [ColA = _t, ColB = _t, ColC = _t]),
    
    Trfm = List.Accumulate(
        {
            [ColName="ColA",delim="-"],
            [ColName="ColB",delim="|"],
            [ColName="ColC",delim=","]
            // add as many ColName-delim pairs as you like
        },
        Source,
        (s,c) => Table.TransformColumns(s, {c[ColName], each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, c[delim])})
    )
in
    Trfm

 

 


Thanks to the great efforts by MS engineers to simplify syntax of DAX! Most beginners are SUCCESSFULLY MISLED to think that they could easily master DAX; but it turns out that the intricacy of the most frequently used RANKX() is still way beyond their comprehension!

DAX is simple, but NOT EASY!

AlexisOlson
Super User
Super User

Select all of the columns you want to transform before applying Transform > Extract > Text.BeforeDelimiter and it should apply the step to all of the selected columns in a single step with M code that looks like this:

= Table.TransformColumns(Source,
      {
          {"Column1", each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, "|"), type text},
          {"Column2", each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, "|"), type text},
          {"Column3", each Text.BeforeDelimiter(_, "|"), type text}
      })

If you need to, you can edit each of these transformations separately (like if different columns use different delimiters or need an entirely different transformation).

Nice shot

Anonymous
Not applicable

This worked great, thanks for the help. 🙂

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