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freelensia
Advocate II
Advocate II

How to union items from two columns of same table

I have a table with 2 columns that I want to union like this:

 

Column 1Column 2Union
apple, orange, apleapple, lemonapple, orange, lemon

 

Is there a custom formula I can write? Or do I need to make a PQ function?
It would be great to customize the delimiter as well.

Thanks for any of your ideas, @Jimmy801 @Greg_Deckler @amitchandak @parry2k @Mariusz @ImkeF 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Add a step prior to this one.  Select both columns and use Replace Values to convert the nulls to blanks.

mahoneypat_0-1612479745487.png

Then use this function to remove the blanks from the combined list.

= Text.Combine(List.Select(List.Distinct(Text.Split([Column1], ",") & Text.Split([Column2], ",")), each _ <> ""), ", ")

 

Pat

 





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View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3
mahoneypat
Microsoft Employee
Microsoft Employee

FYI this is a duplicate post.

 

You can add a custom column with this function.  Prior to this step, you can Replace Values and put a space and no value in the 2nd box to get rid of the spaces first if needed.

 

= Text.Combine(List.Distinct(Text.Split([Column1], ",") & Text.Split([Column2], ",")), ", ")

 

Pat





Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution! Kudos are also appreciated!

To learn more about Power BI, follow me on Twitter or subscribe on YouTube.


@mahoneypa HoosierBI on YouTube


I spoke too soon...your solution cannot handle null values for col1 or col2.

freelensia_0-1612430403285.png

 

I tried to add an if statement inside but looks like I got the syntax wrong.

= Table.AddColumn(Source, "Combined", each Text.Combine(List.Distinct(if [Langs 1] = null then null else Text.Split(Text.Lower([Langs 1]), ", ") & if [Langs 2] = null then null else Text.Split(Text.Lower([Langs 2]), ", ")), ", "))

Add a step prior to this one.  Select both columns and use Replace Values to convert the nulls to blanks.

mahoneypat_0-1612479745487.png

Then use this function to remove the blanks from the combined list.

= Text.Combine(List.Select(List.Distinct(Text.Split([Column1], ",") & Text.Split([Column2], ",")), each _ <> ""), ", ")

 

Pat

 





Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution! Kudos are also appreciated!

To learn more about Power BI, follow me on Twitter or subscribe on YouTube.


@mahoneypa HoosierBI on YouTube


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