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necmik's avatar
necmik
Microsoft Employee
3 years ago
Solved

Text to Function definition

Is there a way to transform a text to function definition in M language? What I need is something like Function.From(text). For instance this text contains a function definition with empty body: Tex...
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  • AlexisOlson's avatar
    AlexisOlson
    3 years ago

    I was hoping for something I could paste into the Advanced Editor but I'll take a guess at what I think you mean.

     

    Is this close to what you're after?

    let
    Source = #table({"ListCol"},{{{[name="InputColumn1", type="text"],[name="InputColumn2", type="number"]}},{{[name="InputColumn1", type="text"]}}}),
    #"Added Custom" = Table.AddColumn(Source, "ToText", each "(" & Text.Combine(List.Transform([ListCol], each [name] & " as " & [type]), ", ") & ") as any => ""..."""),
    #"Added Custom1" = Table.AddColumn(#"Added Custom", "ToFunction", each Expression.Evaluate([ToText]))
in
    #"Added Custom1"

     

  • necmik's avatar
    necmik
    Microsoft Employee
    3 years ago

    How can I use Expression.Evaluate here? I read the BIccountant blog. It gave me some idea but I couldn't figure out how to create a function from text. To be clear what I am trying to do is:

    I have a table and this table has a column contains input schema as list of records:

    {

      [name="InputColumn1", type="text"],

      [name="InputColumn2", type="number"]

    }

     

    My aim is to generate a function like this:

    (InputColumn1 as text, InputColumn2 as number) as any => ...

    • AlexisOlson's avatar
      AlexisOlson
      Super User
      3 years ago

      Can you give an explicit example of input and expected output? I can't quite figure out exactly what part you're stuck on.

      • necmik's avatar
        necmik
        Microsoft Employee
        3 years ago

        Actually I had given in my previous answer. My input is:

        {

          [name="InputColumn1", type="text"],

          [name="InputColumn2", type="number"]

        }

         

        What I want as output is:

        (InputColumn1 as text, InputColumn2 as number) as any => ...

        (A function type)