Forum Discussion

piorsenpai's avatar
piorsenpai
Frequent Visitor
5 years ago
Solved

Split multiple row to multiple row by line break based on character conditions

Hello everyone,   I have a dataframe that looks as follows:     I want to split multiple row to multiple row by line break and first character each line.   Here is the result I want: ...
Need Help
  • edhans's avatar
    edhans
    5 years ago

    Here you go. 

     

    let
    Source = Excel.Workbook(File.Contents("C:\Users\Ed Hansberry\OneDrive\Downloads\split_test.xlsx"), null, true),
    test_Sheet = Source{[Item="test",Kind="Sheet"]}[Data],
    #"Promoted Headers" = Table.PromoteHeaders(test_Sheet, [PromoteAllScalars=true]),
    #"Filtered Rows" = Table.SelectRows(#"Promoted Headers", each ([checklist] <> null)),
    #"Grouped Rows" = Table.Group(#"Filtered Rows", {"num", "checklist"}, {{"All Rows", each _, type table [num=number, checklist=text, sop=text, expected=text]}}),
    #"Split Column by Delimiter" = Table.ExpandListColumn(Table.TransformColumns(#"Grouped Rows", {{"checklist", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter("#(lf)", QuoteStyle.Csv), let itemType = (type nullable text) meta [Serialized.Text = true] in type {itemType}}}), "checklist"),
    #"Filtered Rows1" = Table.SelectRows(#"Split Column by Delimiter", each ([checklist] <> "")),
    #"Added First Column" = 
        Table.AddColumn(
            #"Filtered Rows1", 
            "First Column",
            each 
                let
                    varGroupText = Text.Start([checklist], 1)
                in
                Text.Combine(
                    Table.SelectRows(
                        Table.FromList(
                            Text.Split([All Rows][sop]{0}, "#(lf)"),
                            Splitter.SplitByNothing()
                        ),
                        each Text.Start([Column1],1) = varGroupText
                    )[Column1],
                "#(lf)"
                )
            ),
    #"Added Second Column" = 
        Table.AddColumn(
            #"Added First Column", 
            "Second Column",
            each 
                let
                    varGroupText = Text.Start([checklist], 1)
                in
                Text.Combine(
                    Table.SelectRows(
                        Table.FromList(
                            Text.Split([All Rows][expected]{0}, "#(lf)"),
                            Splitter.SplitByNothing()
                        ),
                        each Text.Start([Column1],1) = varGroupText
                    )[Column1],
                "#(lf)"
                )
            ),
    #"Removed Other Columns" = Table.SelectColumns(#"Added Second Column",{"num", "checklist", "First Column", "Second Column"})
in
    #"Removed Other Columns"

     

    Again, change the source to your file. THe key was adding 

    Splitter.SplitByNothing()

    to the Table.FromList functions in each column. 

     

    Apparently the unusual ASCII characters was causing Power Query to split more than you wanted, so this forces no splitting within a Table.FromList. If ImkeF knows more I'd love her wisdom on this usage.

    You need to be 100% sure nothing is being dropped. I cannot read that language so it isn't efficient for me to do character comparisons.

     

edhans's avatar
edhans
Community Champion
5 years ago

Glad it helped piorsenpai - I learned something myself today. 😁

edhans's avatar
edhans
Community Champion
5 years ago

Oh, I figured it out. It was the commas in your list piorsenpai.

 

Table.FromList automatically attempts to split text in lists where there is a comma. 

 

So this simple list will cause the same error:

let
    Source = {"Test", "Test, more test", "test3"},
    ConvertToTable = Table.FromList(Source)
in
    ConvertToTable

Same error - more columns than expected:

Add Splitter.SplitByNothing() as the 2nd parameter of Table.ToList fixes it.

let
    Source = {"Test", "Test, more test", "test3"},
    ConvertToTable = Table.FromList(Source, Splitter.SplitByNothing())
in
    ConvertToTable

I still don't see the logic of why Table.FromList attempts to do any parsing by default though, but it does.

This code works - and creates a 2 column table.

let
    Source = {"Test, Another", "Test, more test", "test3, final"},
    ConvertToTable = Table.FromList(Source)
in
    ConvertToTable

 



FYI ImkeF