Forum Discussion
Advocate IIHow to union items from two columns of same table
I have a table with 2 columns that I want to union like this:
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Union |
| apple, orange, aple | apple, lemon | apple, 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
Add a step prior to this one. Select both columns and use Replace Values to convert the nulls to blanks.
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
3 Replies
- mahoneypat
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
- freelensia
I spoke too soon...your solution cannot handle null values for col1 or col2.
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]), ", ")), ", "))- mahoneypat
Add a step prior to this one. Select both columns and use Replace Values to convert the nulls to blanks.
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
